COLUMBUS, Ohio — Senator Sherrod Brown and other senators introduced legislation Wednesday to provide protection to postal workers amid an "uptick" in mail theft and attacks on letter carriers.
According to a press release from Brown's office, the Postal Police Reform Act would allow Postal Police Officers to be assigned outside of physical USPS post office locations, such as protecting letter carriers on their routes.
In August 2020, the USPS, under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, issued a directive restricting Postal Police Officers to physical USPS properties, against which the Postal Police Officers Association filed a lawsuit. If passed, this act would allow postal police officers to perform protective postal duties as they have since and before, to other extents, 2006, when the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was passed.
Brown said in the press release the Postal Police Reform Act of 2023 would not impose additional costs on the Postal Service.
This comes as the United States Postal Inspection Service employs "Project Safe Delivery," which aims to target what the agency described as entire networks of people who rob mail carriers or alter and cash checks. Mail carriers are often targeted for their "arrow keys" which serve as master keys for mailboxes.
This has occurred in northwest Ohio, where some residents said their checks had been cashed by unknown persons and some mail carriers have been robbed at gunpoint.
“Too many Ohioans have had their mail stolen and too many postal workers face threats on the job," Brown said in a press release. "Postal robberies and mail theft are federal crimes, and the responsibility to protect postal workers and their mail should not be pushed onto overwhelmed local law enforcement personnel across Ohio."
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