Jersey City police say that 12 people were arrested this week for stealing packages off peoples' porches.

Police Chief Michael Kelly says that package theft has gotten out of control in the city. In order to combat this, police started putting out decoy packages with GPS trackers inside them.

"As soon as we put out our first package, within three to five minutes, someone took it,” says Capt. James Crecco.

Crecco says that 12 arrests were made in about four days due to the sting.

"It’s good considering in the three months prior to that we only had about 10 arrests for package thefts,” he says. “It is a marked improvement. It is showing that it is effective and it's working."

Police say that there are about four or five officers assigned to the sting and they are able to respond to the area immediately when they are stolen.

But police say that some of the responsibility to stop the thefts relies on the package owner. They say that if someone is expecting a package, they should try to be home when it is delivered, or have a neighbor pick it up. Another option would be to have the package delivered to work.

"What we've done at our house is we have a note for the UPS guy, ‘Don't leave something here, put it underneath the porch,’” says Mayor Steven Fulop.

The department says that officers are also working with certain residents to install video doorbell systems to track porch pirates. They say that they hope both systems will act as a deterrent.