This Federal Program Lets Cops Seize Cash, Evade State Laws And Keep Over A Billion Dollars

"Thanks to civil forfeiture laws, police and prosecutors don’t need to charge someone with a crime to seize and keep their property. "

Great article. This is absolutely hideous.

Sounds like the UK. Their search and seizure rules are ridiculous.

Radley Balko. Go read through the old agitator archives if you want to get really disgusted with this and any number of other aspects of police and prosecutorial misconduct.

Cops Will Be Cops wrote:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/09/29/highway-cash-seizures-civil-forfeiture/

Anybody confused about the numbers?

$2.5 billion in cash seized in ~62,000 seizures?

That's an average of $40,322 per seizure. Who the Hell is carrying that much money in cash at any given time?

Seyta wrote:

Cops Will Be Cops wrote:http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/09/29/highway-cash-seizures-civil-forfeiture/

Anybody confused about the numbers?

$2.5 billion in cash seized in ~62,000 seizures?

That's an average of $40,322 per seizure. Who the Hell is carrying that much money in cash at any given time?

If I were stupid or evil enough to be a cop, I would figure out where the roads leading away from casinos are, what legal businesses deal mostly in cash, and so on. And then I'd pull people over and seize whatever I can find.

I read about this sort of thing, oddly enough, in an off-shore banking book, a few years ago. Think around that time, there was some journalism too covering the topic of how some police departments are really raking in substantial benefit from this sort of thing and are incentivized to do so! Thanks to the problematic aspects of our legal system, people who have been wronged by this are discouraged from seeking rectification because of the financial and emotional costs involved in legal action.

...Meanwhile, our law schools have their hands full of applicants at each others' necks for the "privilege" of paying for a super expensive law school education, and then, these aspiring lawyers are again at each others' necks and going hard trying to get prestigious jobs that would minimally justify all the hardship of the undergraduate and graduate years. That is the real reason I groan a bit and get a bit morose every time I hear blue-collar runners talking anew about their machismo of going through law school or balancing professional life and running...

There is more to life than having a "balanced" life and being hardworking and successful... America is the greatest because we have a healthy ambitions and pursuits of prosperity on top of sound moral values and political and institutional arrangements and safeguards.

Law enforcement injustice is but one of a whole slew of terribly serious problems that exist because of legal abuse/loopholes (intellectual property, freedom of information, privacy, corporate influence on government, health and medicine, you name it) and the legal profession is facilitating this sad trend.

But my yuppie and middle-aged haters on this board think I'm just "sour-grapes."

every cop is a criminal. if we executed every cop, the crime rate would plummet.

Kipketer_Pumpkin_Eater wrote:America is the greatest because we have a healthy ambitions and pursuits of prosperity on top of sound moral values and political and institutional arrangements and safeguards.

HahaHAAA! The rest of the world might not agree.

Kipketer_Pumpkin_Eater wrote:

America is the greatest because we have a healthy ambitions and pursuits of prosperity on top of sound moral values and political and institutional arrangements and safeguards.

The reason civil forfeiture exists is because politicians arranged to get tough on crime to protect our moral values from drug-dealing criminals! And because Americans are collectively the dumbest people not only in the world, but in all of history. No stupider population has ever existed. There are a few smart ones but they are always outvoted by the dumb ones who will support anything if it's in the name of fighting crime or terrorism.

More stories about this incredibly corrupt and abusive farce:

http://harpers.org/blog/2010/08/a-license-to-steal/

http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket/print

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/08/12/taken