Steven Greenhut wrote a column today about the extreme pressure the state and local police departments are putting on the state legislature to prevent passage of a law to put controls on police forfeiture. See this link --His title: Forget Justice: Cops just want money!
Police departments like the additional money they are able to take from people they think might be drug dealers. They can use the money anyway they want. They can pay overtime, give bonuses, or buy shiny new cool weapons and devices. All of those expenditures, of course, are outside of the normal budget approval process.
Conceptually, it sounds really good! If a criminal steals money or sells drugs the police should confiscate those proceeds. Why should the criminal get rich and keep the fruits of his crime? The trouble is that while the police say they need this "tool" to go after the big "organized crime drug lords" -- they actually most often use it against the "little guy" who doesn't have the money to defend themselves. People with $10,000 in cash going to buy a car, can be accused of having the cash for illegal purposes and the cash can simply be taken by police! The person then has to hire lawyers to get it back, and the cost in time and money may be more than the person can afford --and maybe more than the value of the money they are trying to get returned! Greenhut cites a situation where the police tried to take a $1.5M piece of real estate because one tenant was accused of selling drugs! Note, there is no determination that a person is guilty to confiscate the assets! The police just take it and keep it!
We all need to call and write our State Representative and State Senator and tell them to vote FOR SB443! The Federal Government also needs some sort of control on their similar practices.
Police departments like the additional money they are able to take from people they think might be drug dealers. They can use the money anyway they want. They can pay overtime, give bonuses, or buy shiny new cool weapons and devices. All of those expenditures, of course, are outside of the normal budget approval process.
Conceptually, it sounds really good! If a criminal steals money or sells drugs the police should confiscate those proceeds. Why should the criminal get rich and keep the fruits of his crime? The trouble is that while the police say they need this "tool" to go after the big "organized crime drug lords" -- they actually most often use it against the "little guy" who doesn't have the money to defend themselves. People with $10,000 in cash going to buy a car, can be accused of having the cash for illegal purposes and the cash can simply be taken by police! The person then has to hire lawyers to get it back, and the cost in time and money may be more than the person can afford --and maybe more than the value of the money they are trying to get returned! Greenhut cites a situation where the police tried to take a $1.5M piece of real estate because one tenant was accused of selling drugs! Note, there is no determination that a person is guilty to confiscate the assets! The police just take it and keep it!
We all need to call and write our State Representative and State Senator and tell them to vote FOR SB443! The Federal Government also needs some sort of control on their similar practices.