WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), and U.S. Representatives Sean Casten (D-IL-6), Mike Quigley (D-IL-5), and Marie Newman (D-IL-3) today sent a letter to U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy urging him to take action to protect letter carriers after crimes against U.S. Postal Service (USPS) employees tripled since 2018. In their letter, the lawmakers call on Postmaster General DeJoy to implement an alerting policy to ensure that all USPS employees are made aware of any potential threats.
“We write with growing concern at the increasing levels of violence and crime experienced by letter carriers around the country. According to the Postal Inspection Service, nationwide reports of mail carrier robberies have more than tripled in recent years, from 80 robberies in 2018 to more than 260 in 2021. We encourage the United States Postal Service (USPS) to take additional steps to ensure the safety of letter carriers as they serve the public,” wrote the lawmakers.
In 2011, following another increase in crime against letter carriers, USPS instituted an outreach system to protect employees and notify them of any threat of danger. As the lawmakers note, the program was halted without explanation.
Some Democrat cities are so dangerous that the local police don’t want to go to some neighborhood but everyone expects a letter carrier to go into those dangerous neighborhoods. How does congress think the USPS can protect carriers in those areas? Assign Postal Inspectors to every carrier in a bad neighborhood and protect them day end and day out. Sorry, not going to happen, currently there are no recourses to handle that kind of assignment. There is no way to stop robberies and assaults, too many crazy people and criminals for that to happen. I guess we can stop deliveries… Read more »