Story at a glance
- A new SafeWise report has ranked three California cities — San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose — as the worst cities for package theft.
- Four of the 10 cities on the list from SafeWise are in California.
- The report also found that package theft spiked in 2022.
The Bay Area is the worst place for package theft, according to a new report.
A SafeWise report released Wednesday ranks cities across the country based on the frequency that residents reported parcels and packages stolen from their front porches or stoops.
The home security analysis website said in a release that the rankings were determined as the result of conversations with “thousands of Americans” over the past five years.
San Francisco moved up from last year’s ranking of number two to share the top spot with its California neighbors Oakland and San Jose.
California cities make up 40 percent of the worst places for package theft list this year. But the Golden State is only the 11th most worried state when it comes to package theft, according to SafeWise.
Half of the cities on the top 10 list are new to the list this year: Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, Calif; Los Angeles; Freson-Visalia, Calif; as well as Milwaukee and New Orleans.
Over the past three years, SafeWise researchers polled 1,000 U.S. adults to find out how many have experienced package theft and found 3 in 4 people have been a victim of the crime at some point.
And the past year has seen a spike in package thefts with 79 percent of people reporting having a package stolen in the last 12 months, a 15-percentage point increase from last year, according to SafeWise.
“Our data shows no signs of online shopping slowing down, so it’s no surprise that package theft numbers keep climbing,” the company said in a release.
Here are the 10 worst cities for package theft:
| 1 | San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA | +1 ↑ | 2 |
| 2 | Seattle-Tacoma, WA | + 2 ↑ | 4 |
| 3 | Austin, TX | + 3 ↑ | 6 |
| 4 | Hartford & New Haven, CT | + 6 ↑ | 10 |
| 5 | Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto, CA | + 9 ↑ | 14 |
| 6 | Los Angeles, CA | + 9 ↑ | 15 |
| 7 | Portland, OR | – 0 – | 7 |
| 8 | Fresno-Visalia, CA | + 10 ↑ | 18 |
| 9 | Milwaukee, WI | + 17 ↑ | 26 |
| 10 | New Orleans, LA | + 14 ↑ | 24 |