People love repeating this for some reason, but mail crime is under-funded, rarely investigated, and even more rarely enforced.

Realistically if you tamper with mail nothing at all will happen to you, until your fraud raises to a headline figure and could get someone a promotion.

Interesting you say this as I had heard similar stories of underfunded mail crime investigations in the past. However, where I live is a very seasonal location. Population goes from 10000+ over the summer to under 1000 during the winter months.

Several years ago a couple people in the community noticed problems with their mail (mail seemingly missing, receiving wrongly addressed items, etc..). They called the postal service and an investigator was out in days. Within two weeks there were hidden cameras mounted in various locations around town pointed at mailboxes. A few more weeks and they apprehended an individual going through mailboxes based on the photos from those cameras. I don't know the final outcome, but the total turnaround from notification to arrest was less than 3 months.

> They called the postal service and an investigator was out in days.

Even underfunded agencies can prioritize. A call notifying them of a problem is a world of difference than them identifying and pursuing issues on their own.

Just like how an underfunded police department may not patrol all the areas they should, but if you call them to notify them of a crime, an officer will likely show up at some point. Even if the officer shows up quite a bit later, the relative difference to when an officer might stumble across that area, much less evidence of the crime, is probably somewhat comparable.

My neighbor stole mail right out of my mailbox. I had it on video. The police declined to do anything about it. So... anecdotally validated.

Try the US Postal Inspectors: https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov/ It may be too old or too small a case for them, but video evidence may help.

For mail-related crime, you should also contact the U.S. Postal Inspection Service. https://postalinspectors.uspis.gov

People love stating this fact because it's likely most people are surprised the law allows for such severe serious penalties for what might seem like a petty infraction. What you've said about underfunded enforcement and rare investigations could be said about almost every other type of non-violent crime.

Uh kyc banking laws used to fund terrorism (eg hawalas) have been extensively ramped up over the past 20 yrs. Theres certain non violent crimes that law enforcement has carte blanche to investigate.

That's good to know.

> "about almost every other type of non-violent crime."

The DEA and other drug-related enforcement certainly isn't underfunded ...

I don't think GP is suggesting that anyone here tamper with mail. However, if you are someone who steals identities and money why would you care? This is pretty easy to verify properly and short of the time delay I can't think of any negative of doing so.

Yup.

This is all my own mail. When I switched ID to the new address, I no longer received emails of mail going to my old address automatically. So there's that.

Observing someone else's mail wouldn't count as tampering with it. Some other category might apply though.

IANAL but the impression I get is that loosely defined terms like "tamper" can be interpreted in many different contexts depending on how eager the prosecutor is.

Falsifying your identity to a federal postal service to gain access to someone else's mail? That breaks a wide range of laws

Right -- falsifying identity to get postal resources would be a relevant category of crime. I don't see how mere non-destructive observation of the external packaging would count as tampering though.