I write to inform you that our community mail boxes (x18), located at 31562 Cottontail Lane, Bonsall, CA 92003, have been vandalized. We are unclear as to who is responsible (postal service/other unknown thief). This is the 4th time in six months multiple residences have suffered stolen mail and each time the matter has been reported to the post office and local police. I understand there have been numerous other blocks of victims across our surrounding community. Can the OIG please take this case and step in to do something about all this theft? It is not ending with the months worth and repeated notifications to local post office officials and police departments. As a retired OIG investigator, the fact that this has been happening repeatedly and without deterrence would make this case ripe for one or more pole-camera solutions. There is one pole on either side of our community's 18 residence mail box, and I am sure there are other solutions your office could consider. Within 60-days you should more than likely be successful at rounding up these thieves and setting the deterrence. Your "YELLOW" stop stealing mail flyers or face federal sanctions literature that are littering our street for months don't seem to be doing the trick. Thank you.

Top 10 Reasons Why the Postal Service is NOT Protecting Your Mail (including Stimulus Checks and Prescription Drugs):

1. The Postal Service has effectively defunded its own uniformed postal police force. On August 25, 2020, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) issued a “Management Communication” referencing “Postal Police Utilization” — whereby the Agency decreed that “Postal Police Officers may not exercise law enforcement authority in contexts unrelated to Postal Service premises.” As a result, USPIS Divisions ceased all Postal Police Officer (PPO) street patrols meant to prevent mail theft and to protect letter carriers who have become increasingly subject to violent attacks. This change resulted in postal inspectors becoming the only postal agents with law-enforcement authority away from Postal Service facilities. The Postal Inspection Service itself has admitted—to a U.S Federal District Court—that the “overwhelming majority of a postal inspector’s work hours are spent working at a desk or in an office setting” during business hours (MonFri). By contrast, PPOs are on the job 365 days a year, 24 hours/day.

2. Too many criminal investigators, not enough uniformed cops. The mission of the Postal Inspection Service is one of protection and enforcement, not investigation (USPIS MISSION STATEMENT: The mission of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service is to support and protect the U.S. Postal Service and its employees, infrastructure, and customers; enforce the laws that defend the nation's mail system from illegal or dangerous use; and ensure public trust in the mail). Postal inspectors are criminal investigators, not uniformed police officers. For obvious reasons, proactive policing strategies are better performed by uniformed police rather than plain-clothed criminal investigators. In 1977, there were over 2,700 PPOs deployed to 66 cities (with five K-9 Teams). At the same time, there were 1,700 postal inspectors. By 2021, that number significantly decreased to 450 PPOs in 21 cities (an 83% reduction), while the number of Postal Inspectors only decreased to approximately 1250 (a 32% reduction). Imagine a municipal police force with more than twice the number of plain-clothed detectives than uniformed police officers. It is readily apparent that the Postal Inspection Service would prefer to investigate crime, rather than preventing it from occurring.

3. Paying for and then ignoring an independent USPIS mission study. In 2009, the Postal Service commissioned, financed, and subsequently ignored an independent study which found that “USPIS should undertake a comprehensive assessment of its current allocation of resources among its Divisions.” The independent study also found a “clear need to conduct a more detailed staffing analysis.” The independent study went so far as to recommend that the Postal Service amend the USPIS mission statement. In a sleight of hand move which is typical of a federal agency attempting to protect its budget—the Postal Inspection Service consequently amended its mission statement without changing staffing ratios or how it actually operates.

4. Ignoring the findings of the Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG). In 2011, the OIG found that the Postal Inspection Service conducts investigations that are not inherently related to Postal Service operations or its mission. In 2020, the OIG found that a lack of oversight and insufficient documentation hinders management’s ability to achieve the Inspection Service’s mission or assess the productivity of individual postal inspectors. The Postal Service summarily dismissed the findings of the OIG.

5. Paying for and ignoring recommendations of a USPIS Workforce Committee. In 2014, a USPIS joint labor/management committee recommended that the Postal Service increase the deployment of PPOs to better protect letter carriers and mail-in-transit. The Postal Service flat out rejected the USPIS recommendation. When the Postal Police Officers Association inquired why the recommendation was
rejected, the Postal Service responded by stating there was no contractual obligation to implement the
recommendation.

6. Paying for and ignoring recommendations of an Intelligence Led Policing Committee. 21st Century data-driven policing strategies are proven to be highly effective. In 2016, a USPIS committee of subject matter experts recommended bolstering postal police protective efforts with intelligence led policing strategies (as a means of more effectively combating mail theft). The USPIS inexplicably disbanded the committee and did not implement any of its recommendations.

7. No reliable means to track mail theft. A NBC News investigation found that the Postal Inspection Service does not have a reliable system to track mail theft: “The Postal Inspection Service data showed that mail theft reports soared by 600% over the past three years […]. When asked to explain the apparent explosion in mail theft, the Postal Inspection Service claimed the figures actually reflected multiple types of customer complaints, not just those involving theft. The agency said it couldn’t provide figures on mail theft alone due to limitations in the internal system it uses to capture customer reports.”

8. Failure to institute proper protocols for postal key accountability. Ever-increasing numbers of mail thieves are accessing blue collection boxes via stolen or duplicated universal postal keys. In 2020, the USPS OIG found a systemic failure to oversee the keys that open blue collection boxes and residential cluster boxes. The OIG audit report called the USPS/USPIS oversight “irresponsible.”

9. The Postal Inspection Service ignores crime trends. As identity theft and other types of exploitive scams have shifted from the mails to cyber-space, most postal crime now occurs on public streets. The Inspection Service has not instituted any meaningful countermeasures to thwart massively increasing postal crime waves. In fact, in response to a Congressional inquiry regarding the Inspection Service’s apparent inability to combat the significant increase in mail theft, a USPS OIG investigation is currently underway.

10. A 47% decrease in mail theft prosecutions. According to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC) (Syracuse University), mail theft prosecutions are down 47.5% in the last decade. In 2019, the OIG determined that “postal inspectors did not properly document investigative activities for area and jacketed cases, specifically with regards to investigative logs, field notes, or arrest details.” The OIG reviewed 42 USPIS case files in which postal inspectors claimed 96 arrests (The act of “claiming” an arrest does not necessarily require a postal inspector to physically arrest a suspect. A common occurrence is the physical arrest of a suspect by local law enforcement, with a postal inspector later being assigned to the “Postal” aspect of the case and then “claiming” the arrest. (USPS, Case: 12-55337, U.S. Court of Appeals, 9th Circuit - 2012) — only 38 of which (40%) were made by postal inspectors while 58 (60%) were made by other local law enforcement. Of the 38 postal inspector arrests, 31 (82%) failed to include required investigative notes detailing arrest circumstances or a list of evidence seized.

The notion that the Postal Inspection Service responded appropriately to mail theft during the pandemic is ridiculous.

I am the current national president of the Postal Police Officers Association (PPOA). The PPOA represents uniformed police officers employed by the United States Postal Inspection Service. Postal Police Officers (PPOs) are assigned to most major metropolitan areas of the U.S. PPOs are a highly trained uniformed police force specializing in mai theft prevention and protection of postal employees and the postal infrastructure. PPOs are not postal inspectors.
 
On August 25, 2020, the Postal Service reinterpreted 3061 in order to decrease postal police law enforcement jurisdiction thereby ending all postal police patrolling activities. Essentially, the Postal Service defunded its own uniformed police force.

In response, the PPOA filed a lawsuit for injunctive relief. Although our complaint was dismissed, the Court ruled: 
 
"In short, §3061(c) is ambiguous with respect to the issues at the heart of this case.   Faced with these ambiguities, USPS did not act unreasonably by interpreting the statute to limit PPOs’ law-enforcement jurisdiction to the protection of postal real property or, alternatively, to leave the question of PPOs’ off-premises policing authority to USPS’s discretion.  As already discussed, these conclusions  follow from  what is probably the most natural reading of the statute, if not the sole permissible reading.”
 
One would have thought that the Postal Service would have exercised its discretion and put PPOs back out on the street again. (PPOs were protecting mail-in-transit and postal employees away from postal premises for nearly 50 years.) But it didn’t happen; PPOs are still currently confined to postal real property while mail theft is exploding. 
 
So according to the Postal Service, the law allows the Inspection Service to surveil Americans’ social media accounts while at the same time, the law doesn’t allow the USPIS uniformed police force to protect the mail and employees while away from postal premises. Only in the topsy-turvy world of the Postal Service could this make sense. 
 
Let’s put this into perspective: While the Inspection Service is busy surveilling the Twitter and Facebook accounts of Americans: (1) Mail theft has exploded; (2) mail theft prosecutions are way down; (3) universal postal keys are being stolen;  and (4) Postal Police Officers have been benched.

1. According to a NBC News investigation, mail theft has risen 600% since 2017.  But when asked to explain the apparent explosion in mail theft, the Postal Inspection Service said that the numbers may be inaccurate. In other words, while the USPIS is tracking Americans’ social media accounts, it apparently cannot accurately track mail theft. 

On May 20, 2021, the USPS Office of Inspector General released Report Number 20-305-R21, “U.S. Postal Inspection Service Pandemic Response to Mail Fraud and Mail Theft.”

The IG found:

“From March 2020 through February 2021, the Postal Inspection Service received 299,020 mail theft complaints, which was an increase of 184,564 (161 percent) complaints compared to the same period last year. Despite this increase, the number of complaints resulting in a case did not change significantly compared to the prior 12 months. Specifically, from March 2020 through February 2021, the Postal Inspection Service opened 1,090 mail theft cases, representing 0.4 percent of the total complaints received. From March 2019 through February 2020, the Postal Inspection Service opened 1,139 mail theft cases, representing 0.9 percent of the total complaints received.”

A few important take aways:
- The 161% increase reported by the OIG is after the 600% increase in mail theft complaints since 2017 which the NBC News Investigation found. When asked to explain the apparent explosion in mail theft, the Postal Inspection Service backtracked and claimed that the numbers may be inaccurate. The OIG found no such inaccuracies. Therefore a 600% increase from 2017 to 2020 is accurate as is the 161% increase from 2020 to 2021. (This amounts to an over 1700% increase in mail theft complaints.
- Mail theft complaints only capture a small part of the overall mail theft problem for the following two reasons: First, in order to file a complaint, obviously one must know mail was stolen and second, needless to say, not every mail theft victim files a complaint.
- Although the Inspection Service only opened cases for a paltry .4% (that’s 0.4%) of mail theft complaints, an open case does not necessarily mean an investigation took place.

2. There’s also been a significant decline in mail theft prosecutions.  Specifically, data analyzed by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University shows a 41% reduction in prosecutions for postal crimes compared to 10 years ago. So while mail theft surges, prosecutions have waned. 


3. The Postal Service uses a universal key, known as an arrow key, to access blue collection boxes, outdoor parcel lockers, cluster box units, and apartment panels. In a recent report,  the Inspector General found that control over arrow keys were “ineffective” and “irresponsible.” In other words, while the Inspection Service is wasting its time tracking social media accounts, it doesn’t track lost or stolen arrow keys; the result being a substantial increase in mail theft.

4. The Postal Police Force has been defunded. According to the Inspection Service, Title 18, Section 3061 allows the Agency to monitor Americans’ social media accounts but doesn’t allow Postal Police Officers to protect postal employees and mail away from postal premises. The former having nothing to do with postal operations and the latter having everything to do with postal operations. 


Evidently, none of this matters to the OIG.

I have had merchandise stolen on several occasions. My local station said they returned the parcels to the sender. The sender never received them. Clothing and jewelry were stolen.