From Deterrence to Disaster: How the USPS Inspection Service Dismantled Its Own Success

From Deterrence to Disaster: How the USPS Inspection Service Dismantled Its Own Success
By Frank Albergo
President of the Postal Police Officers Association

In the late 1960s, the U.S. Post Office Department—the predecessor of the U.S. Postal Service—experienced a tidal wave of internal and external mail theft. In response, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) conducted an in-depth study to determine what could be done to stop it.

In 1969, the USPIS issued a report that recommended creation of the Postal Police Force (formerly known as the Postal Security Force). The USPIS wrote:

“The emphasis of this new force would be prevention. It is our premise that most thefts and employee dishonesty can be prevented, and that from every point of view such a course is far cheaper and more beneficial, both for the Postal Service and the public, than detection, arrest, and prosecution. The Department, of course, has always subscribed to the concept of prevention, but it is believed that the preventative efforts supposedly being accomplished by our guard-watchmen have been largely in name only. It is our judgment also that an effective security force would contribute directly to manpower control and facilitate the tasks of supervisors.

“Integrity of mails is synonymous with security. When the mail is no longer secure, it will have become unworthy of the public’s trust and confidence. … It is our conclusion, based on the disclosures presented in this report, that, as a postal service, we have fallen considerably short of the standard of security, which we owe our patrons and our employees, and which we are capable of providing. We further believe that the concepts presented herein will be a major forward step in providing that security. Accordingly, it is recommended that the new security concept as proposed be adopted.” On Dec. 9, 1970, the first class of 30 postal police officers (PPOs) graduated from basic training. By March 1972, that number quickly had expanded to over 1,600. The Postal Police Force paid immediate dividends. In 1973, the USPIS inaugurated the highly effective “Security Street Patrol Program.” A 1974 USPIS Bulletin detailed the successes of the program:

“Under a program for providing convoy protection for important mail shipments over the road and to plane-side, the armored trucks, and other trucks equipped with anti-hijack devices, escorted by Postal [Police] Officers, have proven to be invaluable. Losses of registered mail dispatched via air have been reduced from an estimated $80 million between July 1967 and July 1972 to less than $25,000 in CY 73.

“The Security Street Patrol Program has been a recent addition to security measures aimed at curtailing relay box break-ins, as well as protecting carriers in high-crime areas on check delivery days in major cities. The patrol campaign, coupled with installation of modification kits on collection boxes, has resulted in reducing the actual number of forced entries. The visible patrols have evoked favorable responses from postal employees and customers. Reports of U.S. Treasury check losses in the Kearney Station area, Los Angeles, one place the program was first piloted, were reduced 60% over a one-year period after implementation of the patrol.”

By 1975, the Postal Security Force grew to over 2,700 officers. Indeed, postal police officers outnumbered postal inspectors by nearly 1,000 officers (2,714 PPOs to 1,720 PIs). The USPIS Annual Report for Fiscal Year 1975 documents the significant cost-savings and crime-reduction effects of the new Postal Security Force:

“Comparing the performance of FY 1971 with that of FY 1975, the results were 44% reduction in registered mail indemnity payments; 11% reduction in insured mail indemnity payments; 30% reduction in number of parcel losses; 7% reduction in number of reported letter losses; and a 44% reduction in the number of employees arrested.”

After another surge in postal-related crime in the early 1990s, the USPIS once again effectively deployed PPOs to the streets in a crime prevention initiative known as “Operation Deterrence.”

The 1993 USPIS Semiannual Report to Congress describes its success:

“Operation Deterrence maximizes the utilization of Postal Police Officers in combating post office, contract driver and carrier robberies, as well as large volume mail thefts through the use of roving patrols. PPOs are deployed to patrol high-value mail theft areas during the hours of street delivery, visit post offices to see if the carriers leave to deliver the mail, and patrol stations and post offices during openings and closings to provide extra protection of employees and remittances. Operation Deterrence has proven to be a successful program as evidenced by the fact that robbery incidents in the New York City area decreased 50% in FY 1993 compared to FY 1992.”

USPIS documents show that “PPOs logged an average of 1,000 miles per day in roving patrol coverage,” resulting in “no attacks or reported incidents in the patrolled areas.” In 1994, the New York Times reported:

“Stung in recent years by a high number of robberies of postal carriers and drivers and burglaries at post offices, the United States Postal Service has very visibly stepped-up security. The measures have included installing bullet-resistant windows in some offices, increasing street patrols by Postal Police Officers, and adding surveillance cameras and better lighting in areas that might be vulnerable to crime, postal officials said.”

Data that appeared in the 1998 USPIS Annual Report showed a significant reduction in postal robberies and high-volume mail theft attacks from FY 1994 to FY 1998 after implementation of “Operation Deterence.” Robberies in FY 1994 were just under 300; by FY 1998, they were reduced to slightly more than 150. Attacks on USPS vehicles spiked in FY 1995 at about 1,500, but dropped to fewer than 300 in FY 1998.

By 2002—even though PPOs were proven to be the Postal Inspection Service’s most-effective tool to prevent postal-related crime—the Postal Service inexplicably employed more postal inspectors (1,873) than postal police officers (1,341).

In 2011—the same year the OIG recommended the cost-savings measure of removing all PPOs from fixed posts—the Inspection Service instituted the much-heralded “Postal Police Carrier Protection Program” in Chicago.

In 2012, the Postal Service’s website touted the importance of using PPOs to protect letter carriers on their routes:

“Arriving home safely is a letter carrier’s most important delivery. That’s why the Postal Inspection Service is responding with an extra layer of security to help carriers stay safe and avoid becoming victims of street crime. In the Chicago District, that means using Postal Police Officers on street patrols.”

In 2013, after a series of violent crimes targeting letter carriers in New Jersey and Puerto Rico, the USPIS expanded the Postal Police Carrier Protection Program to include intelligence-led policing technology. PPOs were equipped with computer systems that could pinpoint the location of letter carriers in real time.

PPOs then were strategically de- ployed using crime-mapping tools to protect those letter carriers. The results were astounding—assaults and robberies of letter carriers plummeted by 88%.

The Postal Police Carrier Protec- tion Program was so successful the Inspection Service began an initiative to equip all postal police law-enforcement vehicles with intelligence-led policing technology so PPOs could protect letter carriers more effectively. In 2015, USPIS divi- sional leadership reported:

“Through the use of intelligence- led policing, and using our Postal Po- lice Officers more strategically, the Newark Division was able to successfully implement the program leading to a more efficient use of our Inspec- tor WPV work hours, with a focus on other areas of our overall comprehen- sive security plan. In 2014, the Newark Division saw our robbery solution rate increase to 58.33% from 20% in FY 2013. This is a direct result and benefit of the reduction in assaults and threats, where Inspectors had more time to focus on investigations and enforcement.”

For over 50 years, PPOs protected the Postal Service’s most critical as- sets: its employees and the U.S. Mail. We escorted letter carriers along dangerous routes, patrolled blue collec- tion boxes and responded to post- al-related crimes in real time.

PPOs had law enforcement au- thority to operate anywhere postal operations occurred—not just inside postal buildings. In fact, USPIS re- cords show that PPOs conducted hundreds of thousands of off-proper- ty patrols to protect the U.S. Mail and the postal workers who transport and deliver it.

That all changed in August 2020 when the Postal Inspection Service unilaterally stripped PPOs of their off-property authority. Overnight, the USPIS sidelined its own uni- formed police force—dismantling the only federal patrol unit dedicated to deterring mail theft and protect- ing letter carriers in real time.

The result was swift and devastat- ing. A dramatic rise in mail theft and violent attacks on postal employees followed—not as an isolated uptick in crime, but as the direct conse- quence of a systemic failure in federal mail security.

At a time when law enforcement agencies nationwide were expanding patrols to counter rising crime, the USPIS did the opposite. It benched its own federal police force, decimated PPO ranks by over 33% and went so far as to publicly announce that postal police patrols had been “comprehen- sively curtailed.” That announcement didn’t just signal a change in policy— it was a green light to criminals.

The outcome is a nationwide mail theft crisis—one created by the very agency charged with preventing it. Organized criminal networks have exploited the vacuum. Postal workers have been left vulnerable. Public trust in the security of the U.S. Mail continues to erode.

Restoring PPO patrol authority is not a radical proposal; it is the bare minimum any functioning federal law enforcement agency would do in the face of a crisis. It is the first—and most immediate—step toward re- building deterrence, restoring safety and reclaiming credibility.