In a previous FedWeek op-ed, I chronicled the U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s (USPIS) decades-long saga of waste and abuse — from the botched 1990s drug stings and resistance to creating the USPS Office of Inspector General to the billions lost through unchecked mission creep. Those failures were not isolated scandals; they revealed a deeper structural rot, an agency more focused on protecting itself than safeguarding America’s mail system. Now, in Part 2, the picture grows even darker: as mail theft surges to crisis levels, USPIS has layered outright extravagance on top of its dysfunction, squandering resources, dodging accountability, and refusing to reinstate the one capability that consistently deterred postal crime — the Postal Police Force.
The pattern is unmistakable. When faced with a public-safety crisis, the Postal Inspection Service does not adapt. It deflects, obscures, and protects its bureaucracy at all costs.
Newsflash to USPS Leadership: U.S. Postal Inspection Service outcomes don’t improve until priorities align with frontline reality. The data in this piece should prompt a serious internal review.
DO SOMETHING BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE.
If anyone takes the time to read this – they will quickly learn that the Postal Inspection Service is a scam. Let’s save nearly a billion dollars of postal revenue a year by eliminating the USPIS. Put postal police under OIG control and then let the OIG handle everything. This is a no brainer.