Background
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service’s mission is to support and protect the U.S. Postal Service and its employees, infrastructure, and customers; enforce the laws that defend the nation’s mail system from illegal or dangerous use; and ensure public trust in the mail. According to the Postal Inspection Service mail theft strategy, employees have come under increased attack by criminals seeking to perpetrate financial crimes using stolen mail. In 2023, the U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General (OIG) conducted the U.S. Postal Service’s Response to Mail Theft audit, which discussed the Postal Service’s and Postal Inspection Service’s strategic and technical solutions to address mail theft and combat carrier robberies occurring across the nation.
What We Did
Our objective was to evaluate the Postal Service’s and the Postal Inspection Service’s progress on its mail theft strategy, including actions taken in response to our 2023 report. To assess the effectiveness of the agencies’ mail security processes, we also examined controls over arrow keys — often a target in carrier robberies and used to commit mail theft — and collection box security and management at several Postal Service facilities within associated Postal Inspection Service divisions.
What We Found
In response to our 2023 report, the Postal Inspection Service finalized its Mail Theft strategy and developed standard operating procedures to define its Mail Theft Analytics Program. The Postal Service also developed a plan to acquire and deploy enhanced security measures to replace outdated technologies. While we found that these actions improved some policies, operations, and decision making related to mail theft, greater controls are needed to protect the mail and employees. Specifically, we found many of the same deficiencies identified in prior OIG reports regarding arrow key inventory, scanning, safeguarding, and reporting processes, and we identified a need to increase oversight of arrow key accountability training completion. We also found that collection box system data was not always accurate, the condition of collection boxes should be improved, and updated security information was not always shared internally.
Recommendations and Management Comments
We made four recommendations to address the findings and management agreed with recommendations 1, 3, and 4 but disagreed with recommendation 2. Management’s comments and our evaluation are at the end of each finding and recommendation. Regardless of the disagreement with recommendation 2, we consider management’s comments responsive.
What more do we need to know. The inspection service is incompetent. It’s a disgrace. It should be eliminated immediately. It’s a complete waste of money. The chief Inspector should be fired. How many OIG reports do we need that say the same thing — the inspection service is failing.
Internal theft is what has driven volume away and needs to be addressed. The public isn’t appalled by external theft but stories about postal workers stealing are alarming. Radicals in labor hire pretty much anyone and the thefts can go unchecked for a long time. This drives volume away from the USPS and will never be reversed. The type of employee hired now has ruined the service ; it’s not every new hire but it is a majority.
The leadership of the USPIS isn’t merely cynical or corrupt. What makes them dangerous is that they appear genuinely incapable of recognizing the damage they cause.
A psychopath at least understands the distinction between right and wrong, even if he chooses to ignore it. USPIS leadership seems to operate differently. They rationalize every failure, excuse every abuse, and reinterpret every consequence as proof that they deserve even more power, more secrecy, and less accountability.
When policies fail, they call them successes.
When crime explodes, they blame everyone else.
When critics present evidence, they dismiss it as disloyalty.
When the public loses trust in the mail, they issue another press release congratulating themselves for “surges” and “initiatives.”
That level of institutional self-delusion is more dangerous than ordinary malice because it removes the last safeguard against escalation: self-awareness.
People who know they are lying can sometimes be restrained by shame, fear, or accountability. But people who have fully absorbed their own propaganda become untethered from reality itself. They stop evaluating outcomes and start protecting narratives. At that point, failure no longer corrects behavior — it reinforces it.
That is how organizations rot from the inside: not because their leaders openly embrace wrongdoing, but because they become so psychologically invested in their own mythology that they can no longer distinguish institutional self-preservation from the public interest.
This is so true!!!!! It started to get REAL bad about 10 years back. The sad part is the current leader at NALC seems
to be part of the problem!!!
USPS BOARD OF GOVERNORS: PLEASE HEED THE USPS OIG AND FIRE CHIEF POSTAL INSPECTOR GARY BARKSDALE AND HIS ENTIRE “LEADERSHIP” TEAM FOR BLATANT INCOMPETENCE IN THE FACE OF UNPRECEDENTED CRIMES AGAINST THE POSTAL SERVICE AND ITS CUSTOMERS.