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The Postal Service and its law enforcement division say they’re cracking down on armed robberies of letter carriers, mail theft and related crimes.

But USPS and the union that represents letter carriers say they’re frustrated with the prosecution and sentencing of these cases.

Now that union, the National Association of Letter Carriers, is championing bipartisan legislation aimed at imposing more severe penalties on postal crimes.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy said in a statement Tuesday it was “simply unacceptable,” that a federal district court recently handed down a 30-day prison sentence for an individual found guilty of armed robbery of a USPS letter carrier in San Francisco.

DeJoy said the individual received a relatively light sentence, despite threatening a letter carrier at gunpoint and stealing the carrier’s personal possessions, as well as the mail and packages he was delivering.

“This sends a concerning message of encouragement to our nation’s criminals and a message of disregard to our loyal public servants, who deserve better protection and reassurance that the law will take crimes against them seriously,” DeJoy said. “America’s postal workers are entitled to feel protected as they go about their public service mission, and at a minimum should be able to take solace in knowing that the law protects them against crime as they perform their duties, and that any such crimes will be taken seriously by the courts.”

Criminals are robbing letter carriers for their arrow keys, which open blue collection boxes, to steal mail and packages, as well as commit financial crimes — including altering checks and committing check fraud.

NALC said assaults of USPS employees “were once rare,” more than 2,000 such incidents have happened since 2020.

“If you’re the U.S. Attorney’s Office, and they prioritize what cases they want to prosecute, those who carry very light sentencing likely don’t get to the top of their list,” Renfroe said.

Renfroe said the 30-day sentence in the San Francisco armed robbery case “doesn’t act as much of a deterrent” for criminals.

NALC supports the Protect Our Letter Carriers Act, a bill Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) and Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) plan to introduce Wednesday.