The U.S. Postal Inspection Service recently announced another temporary “surge” operation — this time in Houston — in which Postal Inspectors were flown in from New York and Los Angeles to combat rising mail theft. According to reports, the operation resulted in two arrests at a blue collection box, the recovery of approximately 80 pieces of stolen mail, and the seizure of nine stolen Arrow keys.
On its face, the operation was a success. But it also exposed something far more significant: the fundamental contradiction at the center of the Postal Service’s current mail-theft strategy.
America is now flying postal inspectors out of cities already overwhelmed by mail theft to conduct temporary enforcement blitzes in other cities suffering from the exact same problem — all while the Postal Service continues to sideline the uniformed Postal Police Officers already stationed in those locations who once performed proactive street-level crime prevention as a routine function.
In other words, the Postal Service is attempting to surge its way out of a nationwide deterrence failure of its own making
Add your first comment to this post