How to Protect Yourself from Porch Pirates This Holiday Season [Video]

Porch pirate crimes, which center around an individual who steals packages from a person’s home, have been on the rise in recent years — and this holiday season is no exception.

“While porch piracy is a year-round opportunistic crime, there is an uptick in these specific cases during the holidays, as citizens are opting for online shopping and higher volumes of packages are being delivered to residences throughout the day,” Sheriff Carmine Marceno of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office in Florida tells PEOPLE in a statement.

“Packages are oftentimes left out unattended for longer periods of time while the resident is away from the home, leaving them more susceptible to victimization,” he adds.

Marceno’s tips for shoppers this holiday season are to “take advantage of package tracking to allow better planning and quicker retrieval of delivered items” and to “consider requiring a signature for deliveries or choosing a designated drop-off location if prompted to by …