As thieves continue to attack letter carriers and ransack mailboxes, members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform expressed exasperation at the "disturbing” issue.
On Wednesday, the House Subcommittee on Government Operations called five witnesses from the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General, unions and law enforcement to discuss the dramatic spike in mail crime.
According to a Raw Story investigation letter carrier robberies alone increased by 543 percent over three years.
“I think the witnesses can see my frustration. I can see their frustration,” Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-MD), ranking member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said during the hearing.
“I think we all feel a great deal of empathy for victims across this country who are expecting medicine or valuables or checks in the mail only to find out that they don't get them, and then, of course, the people who are delivering them are under threat of being robbed, shot, stabbed or killed.”
Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said crimes against U.S. Postal Service Office employees doubled between 2019 and 2023, and attacks on letter carriers grew seven-fold during that time period.
Mail fraud cost Americans about $688 million in 2023 alone, he said.
“The human cost of these crimes cannot be captured by the data alone,” Frost said.
“Our letter carriers are dedicated public servants who ensure Americans receive critical information, documents, ballots, medication and personal letters, and yet, they are the ones being targeted, assaulted and robbed at high rates.”
‘Misleading Congress’
Frank Albergo, president of the Postal Police Officers Association, testified that the Postal Inspection Service’s approach to addressing mail crime is “senseless and quite frankly indefensible.”
The law enforcement agency’s Project Safe Delivery initiative to address mail theft is “a PR campaign, long on talking points and short on deterrence,” Albergo said.
Speaking to Raw Story after the hearing, Albergo said: “It's hard to believe that America's oldest law enforcement agency is misleading Congress, but that is what they're doing.
“Project Safe Delivery, yes, there's some minor improvements, but overall mail theft is still surging out of control.”
Brendan Donahue, inspector in charge for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, testified that the Postal Service saw a 27 percent decrease in letter carrier robberies last year and is on track for a 32 percent decrease this year.
“I can report today that we have seen significant progress in mitigating these issues,” Donahue said during the hearing.
Donahue also said Project Safe Delivery led to more than 3,100 letter carrier robbery and mail theft arrests in the past two years, the installation of 33,000 high-security blue collection boxes and the replacement of 42,000 antiquated mailbox “arrow keys.”
Yet only a fraction of outdated technology has been replaced as the Postal Service has been “starved of modernization,” said Brian Renfroe, president of the National Association of Letter Carriers union, during the hearing.
“The arrow lock and key system that we've had for many years that we still utilize today in most of the country, if you get your hands on that key, you can open anything, at minimum, within that zip code, sometimes far, far, far beyond that,” Renfroe said.
“There are over 9 million locks, [and] every one of those locks has got to be changed manually.”
Mfume said Congress was “astonished” by more than 250,000 mail receptacle theft complaints.
“How in the hell did we get in a situation where we created an entry system for 9 million … boxes where there is going to be valuables, checks, personal information, medicine that people are waiting for? How did we get to that?” Mfume said.
Mfume encouraged colleagues to be “open to every suggestion,” since “mail fraud and all that it has brought about is disturbing.”
“What we find challenging is the rate of devilish interception and the rate of interception that comes from thieves and this criminal mindset that if you put up two fences, we want to find a way to scale a third one,” Mfume said.
“It's trying to get in front of those persons and getting in front of that criminal mind that's a real challenge.”
'Levels of fear'
Albergo told Raw Story frustration expressed in the hearing could lead to “some legislative fix.”
Albergo asked the committee to consider supporting the Postal Police Reform Act, “a bipartisan bill that restores postal police authority to patrol high-risk areas beyond postal property.”
Renfroe asked for support of the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, which requests funding for infrastructure updates such as modernizing arrow keys and strengthening prosecution of mail criminals.
After the hearing, Renfroe told Raw Story assaults on letter carriers have been “heartbreaking” and led to the union’s creation of an emergency response team.
The team also supports letter carriers dealing with mental health issues — suicides reported by the Postal Service quadrupled between 2022 and 2023, Raw Story exclusively reported.
“It creates levels of fear,” Renfroe said.
“I can tell you the places where we have these attacks happening, or certainly the places where, unfortunately, we've lost letter carriers that have been murdered, it has a significant impact on the people that work there.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Inspection Service did not respond to a request for comment.
