USPS deploying smarter, better and stronger collection boxes
Dec 29, 2023, 5:00 PM | Updated: May 30, 2024, 9:02 am
(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)
SALT LAKE CITY — The United States Postal Service is building tougher and smarter collection boxes nationwide.
This is part of what the post office is calling Project Safe Delivery, which launched in May of this year as a response to a huge jump in robberies of postal workers.
The new theft-resistant boxes are part of a larger safety plan involving technology and collaboration with law enforcement. Since May, 109 people have been arrested for robberies and five times that for mail theft.
Postal workers got robbed 500 times last year, according to AP News.
The USPS said 12,000 of these theft-resistant collectors are going to pop up in areas it deems “high-risk” and replace the old ones.
In a press release, the USPS stated from May to October, there had been 10,000 of those high-security collection boxes deployed nationwide in those “high-risk” areas.
These new theft-resistant boxes won’t look any different compared to the regular blue ones on the street corner.
The USPS hopes the new type of collection box will slow the rise in crime related to postal services.