Wouldn't much of the perverse incentive be fixed if the assets were transferred to some other organization, such as the central state or federal budget.
It doesn't really matter where the assets end up. The perverse incentive is that the assets can be trivially seized with no consequences at very little cost to the power structures doing the seizing. What is the incentive for a person or group to stop stealing when there is no possibility for any negative consequences to them? Morals, ethics? There are plenty of people in positions of power who would get a kick out of causing someone else pain and suffering because they're bored.
If so, that sounds like just one more option to seize for profit or harass if the case is too weak.
I still think if the only option is to transfer, the general incentive structure is improved. Stealing with profit motive plus harassment is worse than stealing just for harassment.
I also think in general, to effect change, to campaign for a single thing, easily explained, is the most successful approach.
What part of 'You can't take people's stuff without first proving it should be taken, in a court of law' is hard to comprehend? There's no need to over-complicate the argument that this is blatant state-sanctioned robbery and deprivation of property without due process.
Removing the financial incentive for law enforcement to abuse CAF would be an improvement. You'd need to ban any bonus to individual officers for CAF, and make sure 0 funds make their way bank to the PD (i.e. no budget increases for CAF activities).
But I think it would a better idea and more effective to eliminate Civil Asset forfeiture and only allow Criminal asset forfeiture. If you think the funds are illegal, charge someone and prove it.
The article also suggests that the law is just inherently unjust: "Objects do not commit crimes: people do." Also: "Since civil forfeiture requires less evidence and offers fewer protections than criminal forfeiture, the former is more vulnerable to abuse than the latter."
As for the second argument, I agree, it can be used to harass people.
That sounds a bit anti-government but really I just meant that the money raised from fines isn't a significant part of the government's total budget so it's unlikely to have much influence on policy. Voters would pay more attention to the fines themselves than to anything that could be achieved with the money raised from them.
IMHO it's weird that the police even has something to do with speed traps, those should be handled by Transportation Department or some such.
On the other hand, governments get to print money if they want to, and they have reason to. This might work, but I suspect mostly it would be a complex way of doing nothing, thanks to the literal-money-printing option.
Can you have a process where a bank balance is decreased without transferring the money somewhere else? Do you have to buy cash and then burn it?
You would need to withdraw the dollars as cash and then set fire to the bills. That would destroy them by taking them out of circulation. If you exchange them for literally anything else you want to destroy, you're just changing ownerhsip of the money, not destroying it.
Similarly, if I have some Euros, use them to buy USD banknotes, set fire to the USD banknotes, that deflates USD but not Euros. (Would that inflate Euros instead? Or deflate both?)
Giving that money to the level of government that controls the central bank is probably an improvement for incentive alignment over letting local governments keep it. Destruction just may not be the best way to accomplish that.
My understanding of the US problem with civil asset forfeiture is that money can be guilty until proven innocent there (and by its nature it's obviously not a fine).
the time this transfer is formalized, the powers that be will start reporting on it.
And when something is reported on and makes someone promoted, you can bet it will be pursued aggresively