Report: While the Postal Inspection Service recommends banning such personal items from work areas, and some divisions and processing facilities have such bans in place, there is no agency-wide requirement. Image: Grant Blakeman/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffAn inspector general audit has called on the USPS to take stronger steps to prevent theft of items from the mail by its own employees, saying that such theft “damages the Postal Service’s reputation and diminishes public trust in the nation’s mail system.”
“Internal mail theft continues to occur at mail processing plants and delivery units across the nation due to employee access to mail and packages that may contain credit cards, checks, cash, gift cards, narcotics, high value articles, and other sensitive items,” it said. “While most Postal Service employees work conscientiously to deliver the nation’s mail, there has been a small number who have stolen, delayed, or destroyed mail and packages.”
Completed internal investigations into suspected mail theft rose from 1,216 in fiscal 2020 to 1,790 in fiscal 2023, it said.
In a review of 12 mail processing facilities, auditors identified issues including employees bringing into work areas personal belongings such as backpacks and jackets that can be used to conceal stolen mail and packages. In a review of 10 recent investigations, that was an issue in nine, it said.
The report added that while the Postal Inspection Service recommends banning such personal items from work areas, and some divisions and processing facilities have such bans in place, there is no agency-wide requirement.
Other issues auditors identified included lack of monitoring of cameras overseeing the workroom floor, in part due to vacancy rates among supervisors; inoperability of some of those cameras; and a lack of dedicated periodic mail theft awareness employee training.
“If the Postal Service does not have nationwide policies around what can be brought onto workroom floors and develop more robust training on mail theft awareness, there is a continued risk of internal mail theft occurring in processing facilities nationwide,” it said. “Additionally, without ensuring there is adequate supervision on the workroom floor, employees will continue to have opportunities to steal checks, gift cards, narcotics, and other items from the mailstream, and customers will not receive their mail.”
The USPS disagreed with a recommendation for a national policy against personal items in a workspace, saying that is best left to local management to take into account factors such as work in unheated spaces. It also pointed to existing anti-theft training but said it would reinforce that training, and said it would assess workfloor cameras with a goal of having all operable by next October, but said it is not feasible to continuously monitor whether they are working properly.
In a report last year, the IG said that USPS efforts to combat theft of mail in general—not just by its own employees—are hampered by a lack of staff focusing on that issue, while in a report earlier this year it said that criminal organizations are working to recruit USPS employees to participate in schemes including theft from the mail.
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See also,
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