The U.S. Postal Service has few processes in place to determine its law enforcement needs, according to a new audit, leaving the mailing agency potentially ill-equipped to manage a surge in crimes aimed at its staff.
Serious crimes, including robberies and assaults, on letter carriers and other postal workers have surged in recent years, with incidents doubling since 2019. Most of that was driven by robberies outside of USPS property, the Government Accountability Office found, and thieves are increasingly using firearms to take universal keys from letter carriers.
The spike has elicited outcry from employee groups and lawmakers, as well as new policies from postal management. USPS has hardened many of its blue collection boxes to make them harder to break into and is replacing tens of thousands of the universal "arrow keys'' with an electronic alternative. Postal management also increased its rewards for those who help convict mail thieves, offering up to $250,000 payouts.
Despite those efforts, GAO faulted USPS and its Postal Inspection Service for failing to maintain formal processes or documentation on its decision-making over how many law enforcement personnel to deploy and where to send them. The inspector in charge in each division conducts a review annually to determine workforce needs, GAO said, examining staffing trends and complaint data. There are few specifics on how that process should occur, however, and those supervisors do not document their approaches.
The auditors noted USPS and PIS leadership have no way to determine whether division leaders are applying consistent standards as they review their needs.
QUEENS AREA LOCAL 1022 AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION
