Watchdog report: Postal police staffing hasn’t been assessed in over a decade

There’s new criticism of how the U.S. Postal Service has handled an increase in crime involving the mail. Postal carrier robberies, mail theft and check fraud exploded over the last several years. But a watchdog report found USPS law enforcement, which responds to and investigates mail crimes, has not been assessed in more than a decade. That’s despite a years-long escalation in serious crimes.

Channel 11 has reported the surge in mail carriers robbed on the job, often at gunpoint, for the last several years. The carriers are being targeted for their universal arrow keys which thieves use to steal mail and checks from blue collection boxes and cluster boxes.

The United States Government Accountability Office recently investigated how the postal service’s law enforcement arm responded to the crime wave.

The new GAO report says the number of postal inspectors, who investigate these cases, and their geographical assignments have stayed “relatively unchanged.” The number of postal police officers has decreased.

“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Frank Albergo, National President of the Postal Police Officers Association “Letter carriers are being attacked. Mail is being stolen, and we’re talking at unprecedented levels.”

The new GAO report reads “Our analysis of the Inspection Service’s case data found that robbery cases increased nearly sevenfold from fiscal years 2019 through 2023.”

The report goes on to say the Postal Service is using outdated crime data to justify not increasing its law enforcement staffing. The GAO found that “The Inspection Service completed its most recent security force assessment in 2011.”

“You have to adapt, you have to change to changing circumstances. And the inspection service hasn’t done it,” Albergo said.

The GAO made several recommendations to USPS and USPIS which include documenting how it determines the size and location of postal police and setting a time frame for a new security force assessment. According to the GAO, the agencies agreed with the recommendations and plan to take action to implement them.

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