A few weeks ago my mailbox and its post were taken. Police were notified and although the officer made a report he said there wasn’t much else he could do.
My question is even though I had to purchase and install the new mailbox myself is it a Federal offense to steal it? After all it is used by the USPS.
I have a roadside mailbox.
Yes, it is. In addition to the police, you should notify the postal inspectors. (These guys are serious business and are pretty good at what they do.) You can use this online form or contact your local post office and ask to speak with the postmaster and go from there. Or both.
Thanks for the info. 
Fortunately this happened on a Saturday night so there was no mail in the box. Someone had to be a real cheapskate to do that though. Box and post are no more than $40.00
the PO does want your number (1 inch high) on the door for the benefit of the carrier. to have the box marked might provide some deterrent.
I did have house numbers on the box.
18 usc § 1705:
IME, if someone stole your mailbox, it wasn’t to use it for themselves. It is usually kids doing a scavenger hunt or just out for shits and giggles. It is usually mailbox baseball (hitting mailboxes from a moving vehicle with a baseball bat) around here but pulling mailboxes off their mountings is fairly common, too. They generally turn up somewhere further down the road, abandoned in a ditch or creekbed.
I have a good friend that recently graduated from law school, and he is having trouble getting admitted to the bar because of a youthful attack on mailboxes!
Remember, kids, your actions have consequences!
Is theft covered under the law about damage and destruction?
The theft itself is covered under relevant state law. Removing the mailbox from its post or plinth or whatever is a separate offense under the federal law.
I’ve had two of them smashed (one with a bat and one run over) and basically all the postmaster did was hold my mail until I replaced them.
I think §1707 might cover theft better. When I read §1705, it just doesn’t seem explicit enough to the wannabe lawyer in me to cover theft. The “tears down” part might work, but the title of the section is “Destruction of letter boxes” so I would assume that means tearing it down with force, like a car or a baseball bat type stuff. What if you use a wrench and steal it without harm? Nothing was torn down or destroyed. I thought of becoming a lawyer specializing in federal mailbox theft defense.
But when checking that law to see if it had been updated or anything, I found that section 1707 might be better for a theft charge.
The revision notes say make it clear that this applies to things used by the post office but not owned by them. The mailbox theft defense attorney in me would really hope everyone concentrated on 1705 and forgot about 1707.
But anyway, it does seem to be a federal offense, which is all the OP wanted to know.
(this is what my Friday nights have come to?)
Screwing with the U.S. mail or involving the U.S. Postal Service in any way for an otherwise unrelated crime is always just a piss poor idea. It can and will get you separate federal charges that otherwise nearly identical crimes would not. Postal inspectors are not hired because they are fun people and they can make someone’s life hell for anything from mailbox vandalism to anything involving fraud via the mail.
Some close friends of mine decided to play mailbox baseball one night in high school. They got caught and the only good news is that they eventually avoided prison time. It destroyed their families financially and emotionally however. I tell my kids, whatever else happens, don’t screw with mailboxes.
Emotionally? Really?
Of course. The penalty for destroying a whole street’s worth of mailboxes is potentially incredibly serious. A group of 17 - 18 year olds can go to federal prison for it for many years if the maximum penalty is applied and/or be fined tens of thousands of dollars a piece. It requires lawyers to work that down to something more reasonable and their parent’s didn’t have much money.
How would you feel if your child pulled an admittedly stupid stunt and then you found out your choices were to go broke paying for lawyers or possibly see them go to prison for many years just for a few minutes of relatively minor vandalism and hundreds of dollars max worth of property damage?
In terms of possible or even likely legal penalties, damaging mailboxes is one of the crimes with the most disproportionate damage to penalty ratio crimes in the U.S. sort of like throwing gum on the sidewalk in Singapore. That is one you just have to tell young people to stay away from no matter what.
I don’t know if things have changed in the last two years, but I can attest that the local post offices in at least two different states (separate instances), the main postal hotline, and the postal fraud inspectors really don’t care about mailbox damage or theft. Even if you know exactly who did it, the USPS just tells you to report it to the police and of course the police have other things to worry about. I should add that the postal fraud unit did tell me that if actual mail was stolen or tampered with they would get on it. They even went so far as to ask if I knew if there was mail (that I was expecting) in the mailbox when it was stolen and that they would pursue the missing mail aspect if it applied (it did not, as far as I knew). If there is still something on the books about mailbox theft or damage it seems there is no enforcement these days.
Is there any punishment for the big branch that fell and crushed my mailbox this winter? I think it was personal, since it didn’t even scratch the mailbox 2 inches to the left!
If the feds find out about this, they will tear the perpetrator limb from limb.
they will get to the root of the problem.
By youthful, do you mean under 18?