As for frequency, people are more likely to take something if they don't have to confront a person. There are also a lot more packages available to steal today since more people order online now.
Package carrier walks up. Scans the package, taps the scanner to the box, drop the package in the box, and off we go.
Sell them at Home Depot. People would buy.
https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/book-drop-picture-id979...
But neither of our ideas will work, because the boxes are too big some of the time.
It’s a low value crime of opportunity. Merely hiding packages visually would likely prevent most incidents.
You don’t even know if they contain anything of value and most would probably be empty.
These thieves are just snatching a dozen (or two or three) small boxes at a time, opening them in an alley (or whatever) and dumping anything that isn’t of value.
Even then I find about half of my packages still end up on the front porch despite me indicating otherwise using the carrier's service to indicate where to leave packages. I haven’t had a package stolen in very many years so I guess that’s a good thing.
Package theft also varies heavily by location. I live in a medium sized city but I actually don’t know anyone who has had a package stolen off their porch. I’ve easily had over a thousand packages left at my (highly visible) porch all afternoon over the years without a single theft.
OTOH, if I lived in a few certain cities I wouldn’t want to leave any packages lying out for any period of time.