KENTUCKY — Earlier this summer, Governor Andy Beshear (D) ceremoniously signed Senate Bill 23 into law.

It’s meant to crack down on individuals for stealing or destroying packages from carriers like FedEx and Amazon and the penalty would be the same, if you steal or destroy deliveries from the postal service.

State Sen. David Yates (D-Jefferson County) is the sponsor of Senate Bill 23 which is designed to rein in thieves who steal package deliveries.

During this In Focus Kentucky segment, Sen. Yates explains what it was about Kentucky’s existing porch pirate law from 1982, that made him want to revise the current bill during the 2022 legislative session. 

"It didn't take into account the commerce that we have today. There are huge gaps in whether it's FedEx, Amazon, UPS, all these other delivery services that did not have the same protections that we put into place in the 1980s, to protect that commerce, and so, as a local council person, I had gotten lots of calls frustrations, just time and time again without having any type of accountability. And so when I got to the Senate, we looked into it, and sure enough, it was that loophole in the law. And so from there, we decided to start drafting legislation," says Sen. Yates.

The bipartisan measure breezed through the legislature, passing 37-0 in the Senate and 81-14 in the House.

A similar measure was recently introduced at the federal level. H.R. 6852, dubbed the Porch Pirates Act of 2022, would amend title 18 of the U.S. Code to extend mail theft protections to deliveries from private carriers. That bill hasn't yet moved in Washington.

You can watch the full In Focus segment in the player above.