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Comment by protomyth | Hacker News Reader

"The judge said, 'I can't give you back your car, because it would be right back on the road with drugs.' " (Karkula declined to comment for this story.)

This is why civil forfeiture should be banned. I'm still of the opinion that any ticket money should be handed over to a superfund with strict rules on spending never to return to the police or judicial coffers.

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At minimum, the money should go toward funding public defenders.

How about sending the money to social reform and outreach charities? There would need to be some money spent to ensure the money is distributed well.

Maybe drug rehab and mental health and other rehabilitative programs.

> How about sending the money to social reform and outreach charities? There would need to be some money spent to ensure the money is distributed well.

That just takes the corruption and move it up one level to the politicians picking charities. Its going to be a political battle with a rather large monetary reward.

jrwoodruff's idea probably would do the most good.

How about not stealing the property of those who have not been convicted of a crime?

Whoa, whoa, we have to be realistic here.

Who gets to pick the charities? Who will monitor how the money is being spent? I don't want charities spending 90% of the money on "administrative" overhead.

How about returning it to the people? -- as in "the people vs speeding motorist".

The UK system puts it into the general fund and actually requires a crime to have been committed.

Canada is almost as bad as the US.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/civil-forfeitur...

Ticket money should go toward public transit. Two birds with one stone.

That way they can pay more people to write more tickets.

I'm used to ticketing being handled by the police and public transit being a separate entity... is that not a common organization?

Ticket money should go to a charity of the ticketers choice and be tax deductible.

Why not all go to Charity?

Anything else is a conflict of interests. Send it to an out of state charity. I am fine with taking a car used in a crime away, but you can't give the money to the person who took the car nor the court that decides..

There are already a number of arrangements where corporations can pay penalties to 'approved' charities instead of the regulator as part or all of an agreement; these deals have been problematic, as the government officials appear to be using the arrangements to favor interest groups and potential future employers.

I am not saying your idea is a bad one, but I think it is useful to know where the potential problems lie.

Its that part of government's version of giving a contract to a company then being hired by said company after leaving government. Both should be illegal.

> Why not all go to Charity?

Without getting too political, several charities only benefit the people who set them up and picking charities is a major political exercise.

> I am fine with taking a car used in a crime away

I'm not, per the story that's exactly what they did.

> but you can't give the money to the person who took the car nor the court that decides

Any money received by the government as a result of someone doing something illegal should not be in the hands of the courts or police. I'd rather it not be decided by anyone and just used in some fund.

Too fraught with risk. Police should be treated like any other government agency -- windfalls or other revenue go right to the general fund.

But they'd still be able to justify their budget by pointing to the fines that they collect.

Fines and seizures are different.

Seizures buy fancy guns and toys, SUVs, overtime, etc. No bureaucrat wants to give money to another department.

this is interesting

http://leyhane.blogspot.com/2016/01/illinois-supreme-court-a...

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