Policing for profit

Lexington: A truck in the dock | The Economist

 

Asset forfeiture has been a bad blot on police for a couple of decades now.

Some have even confiscated all the cash of someone who is carrying around "too much" of it, under the pretext that he may be dealing drugs with it. Of course, they then put the onus on the citizen to prove that they weren't dealing drugs or doing anything else illegal.

Guilty until proven innocent.

 

I've heard of this being used unfairly before. Parents who have loaned their car to their no good son have lost it when he got busted for drugs while using it. People have even lost their houses under this loophole, merely because they were naively helping out a wayward relative who happened to be dealing drugs on the side.

It's very wrong. Any confiscation of property should be able to stand up in a court of law. Innocent people should not be punished.

 

This is obviously an abuse of a sensible law. Which is why rational people opposed laws that seem sensible at first. You know someone is going to abuse it.

There is no way Ali should loose title to the truck. There is no way he could have known about the guys drinking habits, and I think seizure of the truck is suspect in the first place.

 

I think this whole thing started with Reagan's war on drugs, am I correct? There were a lot of excesses committed by law enforcement in the name of stamping out drugs.

 

Seizing property in absence of proven wrongdoing and conviction for such is not sensible in the least....That's what asset forfeiture is all about.

 

When it reaches the point of a police department relying on the supplemental in order to meet their budget, there is a serious issue.

Also, the article makes a distinction between criminal forfeiture and civil forfeiture. Seems that the issue is primarily with the civil side. The truck is guilty until proven innocent.

Thanks for the reps too, guys. I wasn't expecting it for the OP (and I also promised that I wouldn't PM "thanks" anymore).

 

I think he probably more accurately meant 'well-intended' law. But anything that gives an entity the power to seize property without going through due process, and then funnel the profits from those seizures back to that entity, will 100% most certainly be abused.

Even with due process mistakes are made. Without it, we're doomed to failure and injustice.

 

Some of the cars seized are repainted and used by the cops. Some cops have really pimped rides.

 

Other than a handful of Ron Paul's at the State & Fed level 95% or more of republicrat politicians FULLY support asset forfeiture as a fine tool for raising revenue on the backs of the narod.