Best Practices for Mail Screening and Handling Processes


By Department of Homeland Security

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The Best Practices for Mail Screening and Handling guide is designed to provide mail center managers, their supervisors, and an organization’s security personnel a framework for understanding and mitigating risks posed to the organization by the mail and packages it receives and delivers on a daily basis. A wide range of potential threats can be introduced into an organization by way of the mail center. Threats that involve chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or explosive substances (CBRNE) are both dangerous and disruptive. Some threats,such as white powder hoaxes and threatening letters, are merely designed to disrupt the activities of an organization or to express dissatisfaction with a particular individual or policy. The mail center screening and handling processes must be able to identify threats and hoaxes and eliminate or mitigate the risk they pose to the organization, its employees, and daily operations. This guide provides an introduction to and understanding of the most efficient and effective processes and procedures to handle and screen mail entering an organization’s mail processing facilities.



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