Asset seizures fuel police spending | Hacker News Reader

Asset seizures fuel police spending

washingtonpost.com

153 pointselectic66 comments

There is an amazing correlation between how much money police seize and what percentage of that money they can keep. The states that allow police to keep a high percentage of the money take in many millions per year, and the opposite is true when that percentage is low. California averaged 24 million in asset forfeiture per year between 2002-2008, after the feds took their 35% cut, in spite of offering better than average protection from the law[1].

With this in mind I've wondered what would happen if,say, 100% of the proceeds from asset forfeiture went to ALS. I expect ALS would benefit very little but at least it would save thousands of people from having their assets stolen by the police. It turns out I'm not the first person to have this idea. The Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act (FAIR)[2] seeks to remove the profit incentive and conflict of interest from civil asset forfeiture (along with some other good ideas). There have been other attempts for reform in various states, but FAIR has a lot of potential to change things at the federal level.

1-https://www.ij.org/asset-forfeiture-report-california 2-https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/113/s2644

> With this in mind I've wondered what would happen if,say, 100% of the proceeds from asset forfeiture went to ALS.

That would certainly reduce the problem, but the correct solution is to prevent assets from being seized without criminal charges and require them to be immediately returned without further proceedings if the government fails to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the assets are the proceeds of a criminal enterprise of which the owner/defendant is found guilty.

Good point. This has me thinking more about the root of the problem. It seems like the justification they use most of the time is related to drugs. Perhaps asset forfeiture is a another example of how the war on drugs undermines our civil liberties, and yet not even John Oliver has framed it that way.

I don't quite understand why ALS is of such a priority that it would be given the funds from forfeiture; I think all cash should be returned to the federal reserve and all other goods put up for auction. But only if a crime has been proven to have occurred and a conviction to stand right beside it.

And the DA's shouldn't be able to do this: "We've got you as the suspect for 7 different crimes, if you give us your house, we won't take you to trial" Person: "But I'm innocent!" DA: "Take your chance in court, or give us your house and we'll let you go on your merry way"

That statement was made tongue in cheek, mostly to illustrate that 1) police are only protecting and and serving themselves when seizing our stuff and 2) removing the incentive would help reduce the problem (along with other points made by you and AnthonyMouse).

John Oliver did a segment on this - http://youtu.be/3kEpZWGgJks

One thing that doesn't seem to be covered is how it changes the motivation to seize contraband, as it is much more profitable to wait until the contraband is sold and then seize the money.

Contraband that is not in-and-of-itself illegal is routinely sold at police auctions to the public. I'm not entirely sure what happens with the proceeds of those auctions. I'm pretty sure they go to the local police department in the same revenue split as cash.

Illegal contraband, such as drugs, are destroyed. The federal government gives grants to companies or police departments to cover the inflated costs of destruction.

No matter how police choose to play the game, they get money.

This seems to be a clear violation of the doctrine of separation of powers.

Even if the seizing of assets is legit, the assets should be looked at as revenue, and should be allocated by the legislature, not the police department.

It is incredibly unseemly for police to be operating their own private economy based on forfeited assets that were acquired due to their position/power.

There should be a downside for police if the seizure turns out to not be legit. I don't think paying back double would be that out of line.

Paying the legal fees of claimants who win would not be out of order.

> There should be a downside for police if the seizure turns out to not be legit. I don't think paying back double would be that out of line.

In principle, I agree. But since the police are taxpayer funded, this just ends up costing the people money, and the only damage to the police force is political/reputational. Not to say those would not be good pressures to have, just that trying to hit them in the pocketbook is not likely to have much of an effect.

How about drawing from the salary of individual officers?

How about malpractice insurance funded by their pension fund?

That's the right direction. Alternatively, individual cops can be bonded. This can also extend to prosecutors and judges. That way high-risk individuals bear the cost of their risks.

Garnish their wages until they're just above the poverty line. And you could also repo/liquidate their house/cars/other assets.

pstuart's pension fund idea is also a good idea. If really you want to grab the cops by their balls, just threaten to take their retirement savings.

The downside is that you'd probably lose a lot of cops by instituting policies like this, so then you'd have to raise salaries or something to make the profession more lucrative. Otherwise, you'll just keep getting bottom-of-the-barrel candidates, just like now, but they'd end up quitting or getting fired under the stricter rules.

Honestly I think we need that anyways. The average police officer salary is massively lower than the average systems administrator salary (or at least that's what some cursory google research tells me).

I'm no fan of police, but there is no way that's an acceptable situation.

> The average police officer salary is massively lower than the average systems administrator salary

Probably not in SF. Here the starting salary for a cop is about $85K, plus overtime. And then there's the lifetime healthcare and pension. It all adds up.

Yeah, that's just asking for corruption. "The boss pretends to pay us and we pretend to work" is a situation you don't really want in the police.

If you do that, they'll find somewhere else to get their cash..

Seized assets should sit in escrow until their owner is convicted of a crime and the assets are shown to the be the fruits of that crime. If that can't be done within, say, a year -- two, at the most -- the assets should be returned, with interest.

That, I think, is the most important change to make here. Right now people who have assets seized are effectively guilty until proven innocent, and I don't see how that's even remotely Constitutional.

Once that is changed, I agree with you: the money should go to the state's general fund or the US treasury, not the police department.

How do I pay my legal fees if my seized cash is being held in escrow?

Pro Bono, Hope for the best!

> How do I pay my legal fees if my seized cash is being held in escrow?

The sensible thing to do is to treat it similar to a bankruptcy. Prevent the defendant from transferring the assets out of the country or spending them on hookers and blow but allow them to be used for legitimate expenses like continuing the operation of the defendant's business or household or legal expenses.

That's a fair question, to which I think AnthonyMouse suggests a good answer, but my primary point was that the cash shouldn't be spent outright before due process has concluded or the time limit hit.

I've wondered about this. If somebody had tens of millions of dollars, it seems like it might be worth it to pay a lawyer a retainer or insurance or something–"Hey, you have to take care of me if a government ever seized all my assets." Otherwise, how do you hire legal representation to retrieve your wealth?

You can't, and that is on purpose. You know, if you could pay your legal fees, so could a drug lord.

Even drug lords are innocent until proven guilty. Or are supposed to be, anyway. Except for treason, the Constitution doesn't distinguish between offenses charged.

If a drug lord has massive amounts of money, that's just a sign the government has failed in its job to catch him earlier. They don't build up those reserves overnight. Why should the government be rewarded for failing in their job for so long?

But aside from that...so what? If the system allows pricey attorneys to subvert the system, the problem isn't the pricey attorneys...

This article is a distraction from the real issue. Most of the spending (including the oft-repeated $225 for "Sparkles the clown") is legitimate. The process of civil forfeiture, on the other hand, is a clear violation of the constitution.

Yeah, I'm not really sure what happened to the fourth and fifth amendments. Both prohibit arbitrary seizure of property.

Simple; the people affected are not wealthy and, especially after their money is taken, cannot take the process to courts.

There have been cases that have gone all the way to the supreme court, including a decision in February of this year:

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/02/ci...

Yeah, it turns out that a piece of paper cannot magically enforce itself.

A more explicit one on this subject, (don't be black while carrying valuables or police will assume you stole them): http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-texas-pro...

I'm slightly surprised the parent link hasn't been substituted yet.

I wonder if the police are assuming the blacks stole what is clearly not stolen...

or if the police simply realize they can steal from the blacks ?

Those are two different problems at heart. Of course, it doesn't make much of a difference for the blacks.

I read the whole WaPo article hoping they'd stop listing the things purchased with the funds (who cares?) and instead talk about where they got the funds and what percentage of seizures are dubious / fraudulent.

The Chicago link provides a narrow window into that question, and it doesn't look good.

For instance I have a nice painting on the wall that a friend created. There's no paper trail of how I got it. Does that mean I continue to own it only at the pleasure of the police?

I'm less worried about my major assets, but what if someone decided I could have been using my house as a venue to write code that could be used for illegal purposes? Do I have to prove every library on my Github account can only be used for legal purposes or risk having my house and laptop seized?

Is the reason the answers to those questions is "no" merely because I'm white, prominent, and a political donor? How is this different from Putin's Russia? (Aside from in degree.)

The reason the answer to these questions is "no" is because ownership in a civil forfeiture proceeding must be proved by a "preponderance of the evidence" standard. The difference between a car trunk full of $100 bills and a painting on your wall is proving that, "more likely than not" the item is the fruit of criminal activity.

"preponderance of the evidence" is a low standard compared to the "presumed innocent" standard of criminal trials. It's not helped by the fact that the judge in civil forfeiture proceedings sometimes has a clear conflict of interest: cf. Coutroom 478. http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/08/26/p...

The key distinction is between punishing you by taking property that is yours (criminal penalty) and taking property that is not yours in the first place (civil forfeiture). In a civil context, preponderance of the evidence is the typical standard. E.g. If I sue you for embezzling my money, I don't have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt in order to get my money back.

I think civil forfeiture has major problems with how it's applied, but it's pretty internally consistent with the rest of the law.

There are at least two major difference between civil asset forfeiture and civil litigation. First, the plaintiff is the government, and the government has vastly more powers and resources than typical plaintiffs, making it more difficult for ordinary people to defend against them and more reasonable to demand from them a higher standard of proof. Second, in typical civil litigation, the plaintiffs don't seize your house/car/money first and put the burden on you to initiate litigation to get it all back now that you no longer have any resources with which to fight that battle.

> “In tight budget periods, and even in times of budget surpluses, using asset forfeiture dollars to purchase equipment and training to stay current with the ever-changing trends in crime fighting helps serve and protect the citizens,” said Prince George’s County, Md., police spokeswoman Julie Parker.

He's stealing those assets from the citizens he professes to protect. Do they have seminars on cynicism at police academy?

As a Canadian I would often take what people from the US say about police with a grain of salt but recently it's seems to have become much worse, even my own government has warned Canadians.

I have to wonder though is this not just policy but also a cultural thing on the far-left side there's the 20-something Occupy 1%, pro-weed crowd is this the same thing only on the far-right?

As far back as 1999 my first time to the US by myself I was held at the border for no reason other than I was traveling alone, I was going to visit a friend for US Thanksgiving. My car was searched, my suitcase torn apart, held for an hour. Now I wonder if that means I will be flagged on the system as someone who was searched even though it was for no good reason.

We live in a police state where the police are allowed to legally rob and even kill people. The sad part is that hiring "Sparkles the clown" actually makes people forget this and trust the police. Stupidity of the people is on par with the vileness of the police. You should consider yourself lucky that that is the only thing that happened to you, which BTW is standard procedure. I would say that's SOP only at the border, but it is becoming more common everywhere within the US, regardless of alleged constitutional rights that are no longer considered by the police or courts.

I don't think it was SOP, as you say, since I was about to go through when I casually mentioned to the guard at the booth a woman I know invited me to Thanksgiving dinner. It was the last question of a series of questions the guard asked me.

The guard at the border said "I think you're going to stay with her and not come back but there is nothing I can find that will prevent me from holding you."

I can't see what going through my entire car would accomplish I had one suitcase, which they took into the main building, and nothing else was in the car yet it took them an hour to search it.

Anyway a big FU to the St. Stephen border guards at the crossing in Maine. I honked to them as I drove back into Canada.

It's very possible they just didn't like you and wanted to make your trip miserable. Or they were just hoping to find contraband, mainly drugs. Or they were bored. Or there was no reason. Who knows? From my experience and research, that is SOP for law enforcement in the US. If they can harass (or worse) you, they will.

I'd agree, I got the guys working the Thanksgiving weekend and they were pissed, took it our on me.

I don't even fit into any often searched groups I'm a pasty white Canadian who speaks nothing but English. I'm so common and dull I could be a spy and blend in anywhere.

The law as it reads is simply too much of an incentive to take everything you can lay your hands on knowing there is little chance of having to give it back. Until there is a requirement that the reason for seizure is backed up by conviction, so you have to give it back later if you can't make the crime stick.

> “All of this is at odds with the rights that Americans have.”

Had.

When I was traveling to Russia 15 years ago, relatives warned me not to show any cash to police.

Nice article, we were just talking about this -

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8423035

This is an amazing amount of coverage in fairly large, established news organizations.

these seizures infuriate me, but i do think it is interesting that the slant on a lot of the coverage falls along the lines: 'and look at this stupid shit they bought with it!'

which leaves me to wonder.. what would be appropriate, or publicly acceptable, use of the seized funds?

perhaps donating directly to services that hope to solve the problems that the seizure was made in claim against?

Reading of such articles makes me wonder about the reports/ranks given by transparency international ...etc on corruption. Comment by @icantthinkofone in this thread indicates this problem can be seen in other organizations too. If that is true, then corruption is there across all public organizations in US. In India too, we hear stories of corruption but scale is different. I conclude, it is explicit in some sectors/countries and implicit/polished/organized in other sectors/countries i.e. indices such as corruption,human life quality are just instruments to point out at emerging countries and show them in negative shades while pushing similar issues in developed countries silently under carpet and showing them in positive shades (at least during preparation of ranks). After consistent media focus, damage will be done and countries will be forever labeled as negative and leaders,future generations will forever live in that pseudo bubble thinking that they are inferior/corrupt ...etc to developed ones. (Many Indians think America/Europe is heaven with no issues like drought/crime...etc).

I included human life quality because as long as systems are working, west including Europe and America appear good(seeing from very far) but once in a while catastrophe occurs(due to nature or man-made), then we will see ugly side (e.g: looting during katrina[1], London riots[2], riots in sweden[3] ...etc) as if that ugly side is suppressed under the weight of systems/rules rather than genuine intrinsic goodness of people living there[4].

My intention is not to show any one in bad light but to give the conclusion or correct the myth that just because a country is materially wealthy i.e. developed, does not mean that there will be no daily issues. If emerging countries like BRICS understand that, then they pursue all round development rather than blindly becoming photo copies of west in pursuit of material wealth and harming themselves like pollution in china[5].

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9131493/ns/us_news-katrina_the_lon... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots [4]http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/why-is-there-no... [5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China

This is systemic corruption. As long as the federal government thinks it's kosher and they take their cut, it's unlikely to show up in international reports.

If the Washington Post, and others, would turn the same eye on any other organization, they would have a field day of things they would find, but it wouldn't sell as many newspapers. The problem is, they make it sound like all police have these issues (and others they "report" on) when the reality is far from it.

Someone will comment, "But the police shouldn't be doing this and it's a government institution!!", as if such institutions are not run by human beings but angels from God.

So.. is this a boys will be boys scenario? I'm not understanding your general point. It's clear these cops were operating like a mob organization, as do many precincts in this country. I see no harm in highlighting some wrong doing in hopes it'll curb other departments from doing the same.

My point is, you can find similar stories about any organization, from religious operations to charities to almost anything and people will stand up to it as if such things were rampant throughout every member and each and every one of them is a dastardly person.

These stories are what I call the 'shrill of the internet' and you are supposed to focus on it cause, well, someone's screaming about it on the internet so it must be important and rampant and we're all going to die.

In the meantime, you get into trouble and who are the first people you call for help?

What other organization routinely takes and keeps assets from US citizens without permission?

And forces you to fund them at the same time.

You are lumping everything in one category and calling it the same. This is the (can't think of a better word) falsehood of the internet.

Oh please, I think the litany of "it's just a few bad apples" has been disproven enough already. I suppose the up to 40% domestic abuse rates among police families (4x national average) is lying about the reality as well?

http://womenandpolicing.com/violenceFS.asp

I don't claim to know what the solution to America's law enforcement problems are but I have grown increasingly tired of apologists rushing to defend every police action no matter how abhorrent. Police are an important part of any modern society and you aren't doing them favors by sparing them all scrutiny.

I should not have to start my iPhone voice recorder and keep my vehicle's dashcam running during a traffic stop because of fears I would normally have living someplace like Russia.

If you do, you are the only person I know who does. I've never even heard of such a thing.

I do not fear the police. I have no need to.

Whatever happend to you that you feel you need to do that? Or is it only because of something you read on the internet?

You are shifting from the topic to police families. On top of that, you are tired of apologists for police but have no problem sticking up for the other side.

Are you seriously arguing that expecting police officers to not be BANDITS is somehow asking too much?

Never said that. Quit making stuff up.

They should be held to a higher standard, as they have power granted to them by the public to use in the public interest.

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