USPS adding security blue collection boxes in high crime areas

You’d better watch out, potential postal thieves. The U.S. Postal Service is coming to town, going high-tech to help prevent thefts from those iconic blue collection boxes placed in high-crime areas.

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The agency is in the process of installing 12,000 advanced security blue collection boxes, NBC News reported. As of October, 10,000 of the boxes had been installed in trouble spots, as postal officials hope to blunt the more than 25,000 mail thefts that occurred during the first half of the 2023 fiscal year, according to the news organization.

“We are hardening targets -- both physical and digital -- to make them less desirable to thieves and working with our law enforcement partners to bring perpetrators to justice,” Gary Barksdale, the Postal Inspection Service’s chief postal inspector since March 2019, said in a statement.

The new boxes look the same outside appearance as the old ones, NBC News reported.

“There is no plan to stop until the mail is secure,” Michael Martel, a spokesperson for the Postal Inspection Service, told the news organization.

Martel declined to give specifics about the enhanced technology, citing security concerns. He did say that the new boxes were designed “to thwart a number of different attacks or ways that criminals try to break into them and steal our mail.”

Martel conceded there was no guarantee that the new method would completely solve the problem of theft. He advised customers to place mail in the boxes as close to the scheduled pickup time as possible to prevent possible thefts, NBC News reported.

He also suggested that if customers are leaving town, they should have their mail held at their local post office until they return.

“If you’re going to visit family for the holidays, I highly recommend you do that,” Martel told the news organization. “So you don’t leave your mail piling up in your mailbox or packages piling up on your front porch, that’s just an invitation for folks that are driving around looking for opportunities.”