Unfortunately, the Postal Inspection Service views the relationship between its criminal investigators and uniformed police officers as a zero-sum game. Image: Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock.com
By: Frank Albergo, Postal Police Officers AssociationIn May of 2024, the Government Accountability Office [GAO] issued a report which found that the U.S. Postal Inspection Service [USPIS] does not have processes in place to determine its law-enforcement needs which—the report finds—has left the Postal Service exposed to criminal attack.
The following excerpt from the GAO report was of particular importance:
“According to Inspection Service officials, the size and placement of the postal police workforce at USPS facilities in fiscal year 2023 relied on the 2011 assessment. Inspection Service officials told us that the primary goal of the 2011 assessment was to meet a USPS deadline to reduce the number of authorized postal police. To accomplish this, the Inspection Service limited the 2011 assessment to the existing postal facilities—39 at that time—with authorized postal police staff.”
In other words, the size, placement, duties and responsibilities of the Postal Police Force are not based upon the security needs of the Postal Service. Instead, they are based upon the absurd notion that the Postal Service can save money on the backs of a few bargaining-unit Postal Police Officers [PPOs] at the expense of the safety of letter carriers and the sanctity of the U.S. Mail.
Ironically, the last time the Postal Service conducted a postal police staffing assessment (2011) was also the same year the USPS Office of Inspector General [OIG] found that the greatest cost savings would be achieved by cutting postal inspector operations, NOT postal police operations. For instance, the OIG “found that more than 34 percent of [USPIS] investigative activities do not directly support protection of Postal Service assets, Postal Service employees, or the mail system, and that […] eliminating these activities could realize annual cost savings of $77 million or $766 million over the next 10 years.” In 2024 dollars, this amounts to a savings of over one billion dollars of USPS revenue.
In direct contradiction to the OIG’s findings—thirteen years later—the Postal Service continues to waste USPS money by conducting investigations that are not inherently related to Postal Service operations (as the OIG uncovered during the recent controversy surrounding the USPIS analytics program otherwise known as iCOP.
And, while USPIS was busy tracking and collecting Americans’ social media posts via iCOP — mail theft, attacks on letter carriers, and crimes against postal customers were spiraling out of control. And, after years of denying that a mail theft problem existed, the Postal Inspection Service eventually got around to implementing a finalized mail theft strategy in March of 2024.
Remarkably, in its brand new “Combatting Mail Theft and Letter Carrier Robberies Strategy” USPIS admitted that the installation of high-security collection boxes [HSCB’s] was the impetus behind the 845% increase in letter carrier robberies:
“Beginning around 2020, and continuing to present date, the Postal Service has experienced a significant increase in mail theft from mail receptacles, primarily due to financially motivated crimes like check fraud. This is evidenced by a 139% increase in reports of high-volume mail theft from mail receptacles between Fiscal Year (FY) 2019 and FY2023, with 20,574 reports in FY 2019 and 49,146 reports in FY2023.
Prior to 2020, mail theft from mail receptacles was primarily perpetrated through forced entry or using fishing devices. However, that shifted as the Postal Service and the Postal Inspection Service strengthened the physical security of blue collection boxes. […]
During the same period these physical security enhancements were implemented, the Postal Service began to experience a marked increase in letter carrier robberies. The rise in letter carrier robberies is evidenced by an 845% increase between FY2019 and FY2023, with 64 letter carrier robberies in FY2019 and 605 letter carrier robberies in FY2023.”
Disturbingly, after admitting that HSCB’s leads to letter carrier robberies, USPIS nevertheless continues to install HSCB’s without electronic arrow key locks—knowing full well that incidences of crime against letter carriers will increase as a result. Concurrently, USPIS refuses to deploy uniformed Postal Police Officers to protect letter carriers in the areas where the HSCB’s have been installed.
Making this situation even more ridiculous, in the 2020 internal USPIS memo which banned all off-property postal police functions, the Postal Inspection Service unwittingly admitted that postal police carrier protection patrols were effective. Specifically, USPIS states that it would be “reasonably likely that PPOs would be compelled to exercise law enforcement activity” during a “carrier protection patrol.” Lest anyone think that this is a misreading of the internal USPIS memo — below, is that excerpt:
“Approval is not required for PPOs to travel off premises in order to get to a duty assignment or incident at another Postal Service location. However, during this travel they are not to be placed into situations in which it would be reasonably likely that they would be compelled to exercise law enforcement activity (e.g., carrier protection patrols, community policing patrols, and fishing patrols).”
Put another way, USPIS would rather allow letter carriers to be attacked than allow Postal Police Officers to exercise law enforcement authority to prevent such an attack. And, both of those scenarios can be described as “reasonably likely.” No other conclusion can be drawn.
Put simply, the Inspection Service is the only law enforcement agency in America that actively avoids situations (such as carrier protection patrols) where it would be “reasonably likely” that uniformed police officers would be compelled to exercise law enforcement activity and prevent a crime from occurring. This is akin to a local police department forbidding their officers from patrolling a specific city street because there is too much crime on that street. Indeed, the USPIS mail theft strategy has the unique distinction of being the first and only anti-crime strategy in the history of American law enforcement that does not include the use of uniformed police officers.
But wait… the absurdity somehow gets worse. Postal Police Officers continue to escort APWU represented employees [i.e., postal truck drivers] during high-value mail escorts otherwise known as a “Con-Con” (Concentration and Convoy).
Logic dictates that the reason the Postal Inspection Service would allow postal police to escort postal truck drivers is that it is “reasonably unlikely that those officers would be compelled to exercise law enforcement activity” during such an escort.
Therefore, the postal workers (i.e, letter carriers) who are “reasonably likely” to need postal police protection do not receive that police protection, while the postal workers (i.e, postal truck drivers) who are unlikely to need postal police protection are given that police protection. Only in the topsy-turvy world of the Postal Inspection Service could any of this make the slightest sense.
To reiterate, USPIS did not finalize a mail theft strategy until March of 2024—even though it knew robberies of letter carriers and mail theft were exploding as early as 2020.
To put the priorities of the Inspection Service in order, USPIS finalized its “Combating Illicit Drugs in the Mail Strategy” in September of 2020 — one month after it benched the Postal Police Force and nearly four [4] years before it finalized its mail theft strategy.
Here are the results:
· In FY2022, USPIS made 2,110 drug arrests and convicted 1,949 suspects accounting for an impressive 92% conviction rate.
· By contrast, USPIS mail theft arrests plummeted by 49% from 2,487 in FY2018 to a paltry 1,258 in FY2022; and USPIS mail theft convictions plummeted by 43% from 2,101 in FY2018 to 1,188 in FY2022. Even worse — in FY2022 — USPIS opened 423 robbery cases and convicted only 68 suspects accounting for a measly 16% conviction rate.
To the Postal Inspection Service, arresting a drug dealer is evidently a higher priority than arresting a mail thief or someone who would rob a letter carrier. And yet, the Postal Inspection Service is not the lead on illegal narcotics investigations—that’s under the purview of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Likewise, USPIS is not the lead on mail fraud investigations—that’s the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). And USPIS is not the lead on identity theft—that’s the U.S. Secret Service.
So, what exactly is the U.S. Postal Inspection Service the lead on? Well — it’s mail theft and protecting postal workers — the exact areas in which both the USPS OIG and the GAO found glaring USPIS systemic failures.
Make no mistake, arresting drug dealers is a noble mission—but it is not the primary mission of the Postal Inspection Service. And, why a cash-strapped Postal Service should be paying for it remains a mystery.
If you should ask USPIS why it prefers more costly postal inspector operations over postal police operations — here is their response:
· “The Postal Inspection Service National Headquarters directed field Divisions to stop using PPOs for patrols outside Postal Service real property. […] It is the role of Postal Inspectors to investigate these crimes and keep our carriers safe.” — November 28, 2022, USPIS letter to Senator Sherrod Brown
· “The Postal Inspection Service already patrols streets to protect the mail and letter carriers. Postal Inspectors, not PPOs, regularly conduct street observations in areas where high numbers of letter carrier robberies and mail thefts have been reported.” — September 16, 2022, USPIS letter to Subcommittee on Government Operations
· “Postal Inspection Service leadership began to comprehensively curtail the use of PPOs for law enforcement outside the immediate environs of Postal Service real property. The Inspection Service already engages in off-site protection of the mail and our letter carriers. Postal inspectors, not PPOs, regularly conduct surveillance and appropriate enforcement actions in areas where high numbers of letter carrier robberies and mail thefts have been reported.” — June 12, 2023, USPIS Statement to NBC News K5 Seattle
· “The main tenet of the Inspection Service is to investigate crimes that affect postal customers, employees and infrastructure.” — August 17, 2023, USPIS Statement to WTTW Chicago
· “We’re not a protective force. We’re here as an investigative body.” — March 19, 2024, USPIS Statement to Raw Story
Unfortunately, unlike any other law enforcement agency in America, the Postal Inspection Service views the relationship between its criminal investigators and uniformed police officers as a zero-sum game. As USPIS states out loud, it would rather investigate crime than prevent crime—even when the investigation has little to do with protecting the U.S. Postal Service.
Please ask yourself, what other federal agency possesses such a contempt for its own purpose, combined with an absolute disregard of what one might reasonably expect from a uniformed, federal police force?
Today, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is in chaos, saddled with waste and abuse. Assaults on postal employees and mail theft are now the norm, rather than the exception—all while uniformed Postal Police Officers sit on the sidelines watching this debacle unfold.
Widespread Layoffs of Probationary Employees Begin
Start Planning for ‘Large-Scale’ RIFs, Trump Tells Agencies
Unions Sue to Block RIF Directive; Say Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs Are at Stake
Judge Allows Deferred Resignation to Proceed; OPM Says Program Now Closed
Agencies Asked for Lists of Employees Rated below ‘Fully Successful’
OPM Tells Agencies to Revert to Prior Trump Policies on Discipline, Bargaining
‘Deferred Resignation’ Is Legal, Binding on Government, OPM Says
OPM Tells Agencies to Broaden Considerations for Schedule F – Now “Policy/Career”
See also,
Primer: Early out, buyout, reduction in force (RIF)
Deferred and Postponed Annuities Under CSRS and FERS
Have My Federal Benefits Changed in 2025
Get Your Official Personnel Folder in Order to Max Out Benefits
