Alleged porch pirates charged with theft
A man and woman found in possession of other people’s postal packages were charged with theft this week. (It’s actually reassuring to read that the cops could concern themselves with porch pirates, as it seems generally believed that our cops aren’t interested in any theft smaller than a car.)
I don’t think the stock photo on this article was shot in Montreal, though.
Nicholas 12:40 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
The stock photo is all over the internet, earliest I saw in a reverse Google Image search was a string of stories in December 2018. That it’s from an AP photographer means it’s probably not Canadian. Looks very Boston to me, but the photojournalist is based in NYC, formerly DC, so who knows.
I also have a personal pet peeve when journalists use cutesy terms like porch pirates or pump and runners (for people who steal gas) or taxers (for people who take things from, usually, teens on the street by force). Just call them thieves or robbers. I remember a string of letters in the Gazette in the early 2000s of people sympathizing with the “pump and runners” because gas was expensive and these are just huge multinational corporations. If we want to justify theft in some or all cases, we can do it, but for supposedly neutral journalists to give thieves cool names ala Robin Hood is just gross.
Meezly 12:59 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
They didn’t even bother revising the caption that accompanied the stock photo as it mentions “holiday packages”!
I wouldn’t be surprised if the residents did most of the real leg work, ie. video cam footage, tracked the thieves down, etc. The police just needed to show up to find the evidence at the thieves’ address and make arrests.
Kate 13:00 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
Nicholas, I think such terms can define a specific kind of theft that we all understand. Would you object to “pickpocket”? The people are being charged with plain old theft, not with porch piracy.
Good catch, Meezly!
jeather 13:49 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
Dine and dash is another common term, and of course shoplifting. I’ve never heard pump and run or taxers.
Nicholas 15:53 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
Kate, pickpocket has usage going back to at least 1591. Porch piracy is something like five years old. I assume it was invented by some marketer for a security firm due to its alliteration, because it doesn’t resemble piracy in any way except the theft (there’s no moving conveyance, there’s usually no violence (so not robbery), etc). Why not use porch theft, package theft or parcel theft? It’s because piracy makes it sound cool, a little anti-establishment (people love pirates in movies, even though actual piracy was usually barbaric). I don’t think it’s a term we all understand, but an idea we understand with better descriptors out there but is called this because people can’t help rooting against Amazon/Fed Ex/etc, even though it costs everyone in higher prices and sometimes something we badly need is stolen from us (like medication). (I’d never heard of this term until today.)
They’re thieves, commiting theft, let’s call it what it is. At least the media should.
Ian 17:28 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
The term goes back a lot further than 5 years, “The phrase porch pirate dates back to the early 2010s, the newly-coined term being entered on Urban Dictionary in 2011 and debuting on the social media platform, Twitter, also in 2011”. source
…but that aside, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone romantcise “porch pirates”. Quite the opposite, people delight in exacting terrible revenge on them.
This is just one playlist of many:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE_h8GWrV8_5ThpbwxaGyxpj6X6SkU6Ck
I am a big fan of the glitter bombs.
Blork 19:27 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
Arguably: not all thievery is equal. On one end of the scale is the classic street urchin stealing an apple from a grocer in order to survive. Elsewhere on the scale (which is really more like a 3D matrix) there’s the modern-day Robin Hood who steals from greedy corporations and may or may not share their spoils with the poor.
And then there’s porch pirates. One of the reasons we feel so infuriated by this crime — which in one sense at least is petty — is the way it erodes our social trust. It’s not just that a thief dares to come on to our property (!) in order to steal, it’s the way it disrupts what has long been a “given” in civil society: that something as basic as our mailboxes (or in this case, our front steps) are reasonably safe and secure. Many of us grew up hearing that interfering with mail was a FEDERAL OFFENCE, and only the lowest of criminals would dare cross that line. We extended that to packages. It seemed sacrosanct. But no. Now it’s a free-for-all and it reminds us of all the other ways that civility has eroded.
It’s probably irrational. After all, thieving f*ckers will steal whatever they have access to, as they always have. But this is, I think, why so many take this kind of thievery so personally and get all revved up over it. Myself included.
Ian 22:09 on 2024-06-14 Permalink
When i lived in the bowels of St Henri in the early 90s, we had bikers, counterfeiters, loan sharks, dealers and fences. All good in the hood.
People that stole mail? Openly beaten in the streets.