Security in the Spotlight for Postal Workers, Mailboxes
Members of Congress and officials with the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) and U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) are keeping the issue of postal security front and center.
Over the past few years, USPS has dealt with rising violence against letter carriers, and rising fraud and theft with the mail itself.
Back in May, USPS said there were 305 robberies of postal carriers halfway through Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, with 412 robberies in all of FY 2022. In the first six months of this fiscal year, 25,000 mail thefts have been reported, compared to 38,500 in all of FY 2022.
A bipartisan group of members of Congress believe that restoring the ability of the Postal Police force to protect letter carriers beyond physical post offices would go a long way in cutting down on crime.
In August 2020, Postmaster General Louis DeJoy ordered postal police officers to discontinue patrols away from the physical post office, insisting that postal police officers do not have the legal authority to do so.
However, the Postal Police Reform Act of 2023 (H.R. 3005) would clarify the ability of the approximately 750 postal law enforcement officers to patrol beyond their post office locations.
“Americans are entitled to get their mail,” Representative Bill Pascrell (D-NJ), one of the co-sponsors of the legislation, said at a news conference outside a post office in Paterson, N.J. “We must stop handcuffing postal law enforcement officers. Let’s let police do what they do best.”
Frank Albergo, National President of the Postal Police Officers Association, has said that postal officers have been on patrols in the past.
“Postal police officers have been trained to protect, but the 2020 directive has hindered their ability to fulfill their duties,” said Albergo. "This legislation is common sense and necessary to safeguard both postal workers and the public."
Security Measures
Meanwhile, USPS is implementing security measures to safeguard mailboxes and to protect against mail fraud. The agency is installing 49,000 locks on mailboxes and is upgrading over 12,000 blue collection boxes with advanced anti-theft features and security measures, effectively requiring two-factor authentication on many of the mailboxes.
USPS says recent security chances including dual authentication identity verification, are cutting down on change of address fraud.
“We’re putting national assets where they need to be, from coast to coast, really to deal with postal crimes at a local level, putting national assets in areas to advance local cases, arrest criminals that are perpetuating postal crimes and putting them behind bars,” U.S. Postal Inspection Service Public Information Officer Michael Martel told Federal News Network.