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Comment by declan | Hacker News Reader

Police abuses of civil asset forfeiture have been around longer than many HN readers have been alive. Here's an example of civil asset forfeiture abuse in 1991 (the practice extends back to at least 1985), which was the subject of congressional testimony in 1996: https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/statement-rep-he...

I remember going to DC policy seminars on the topic that groups like the ACLU and the Cato Institute held 10-15 years ago, and Cato published a lengthy paper about these abuses in 2006: http://www.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/balko_whit...

There's even an organization devoted to ending civil asset forfeiture abuses: http://fear.org/

But after roughly three decades of this practice, and over two decades of well-documented abuses, nothing has changed. Why this remains the case, even though every politician and judge is aware or should be aware of these abuses, is left as an exercise for the reader.

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"and over two decades of well-documented abuses, nothing has changed."

Fourteen years ago in Utah we overwhelmingly passed a citizens' ballot initiative to change the law put an end to seizure abuses. The standards of proof were raised and police were prohibited from using proceeds for themselves; all proceeds were to be passed to the public schools fund.

The state auditor published a report every year about all the county attorneys that were violating the law and the millions they were keeping and the illegal diversion of funds to the police and the total failure to turn over proceeds to the schools. All the major counties' police forces and prosecutors -- from both political parties -- were openly violating the law and making personal use of the seizures -- technically they were taking stolen property.

The new standards of proof were ignored by the courts. The two state attorneys general -- two from both parties -- deliberately ignored the reports that the state auditor was publishing. The press ignored the reports, too. The public re-elected the district attorneys involved.

Eventually the state legislature simply reversed the citizen initiative and restored the old civil forfeiture rules.

Wow, that is really depressing.

This is a bigger issue than just civil asset forfeiture. This kind of conflict of interest encompasses ticket "quotas" (technically disallowed but tacitly followed) or when someone with an out-of-state license plate is targeted on the assumption that they're less likely to fight the ticket. I've heard of cops bragging about the tickets they write and how they're putting money in the city's coffer.

But I'm at a loss what to do about it. Is there a way to disassociate enforcement from penalizing?

You have to make it so that the money doesn't go back into the political unit's general funds nor a fund where the enforcing agency gets access to it directly or indirectly. Perhaps the money goes to a pool of charities, or is earmarked to remedy the victims of crimes, or is simply returned to the Federal Reserve (though that might just circulate back to the banks).

The idea is to remove the monetary incentives from enforcement actions.

That's exactly how enforcement of federal crimes works. The money goes to the Crime Victims Fund [0], which is then disbursed to services that support the victims of crime. It's a remarkably well-run federal program.

[0]: http://ojp.gov/ovc/about/victimsfund.html

> Is there a way to disassociate enforcement from penalizing?

You could just not give the government the revenue. If you get a traffic ticket the fine is paid to your choice of any 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.

In theory you could still have police issuing tickets because they want to increase donations to the Red Cross or something, but the cops have no control over which organization gets the money, and they certainly don't get to ride around in toys the money bought.

I initially liked that concept, but the soon as someone started being a jerk and picked a 503(c) that represented something distasteful, the police would have political ammunition to use.

The trick is that choice must somehow be removed from the equation. I'm starting to like the federal reserve concept more since they initiate the circulation of money in the first place, they would be the most neutral party and it would be economically neutral at the national level (though it would suck money out of local economies... hmmm...).

> I initially liked that concept, but the soon as someone started being a jerk and picked a 503(c) that represented something distasteful, the police would have political ammunition to use.

I don't really see how people choosing to donate the money to particular organizations should be any more controversial than allowing the organizations to be tax exempt in the first place.

And using the money for a governmental purpose generally is a bad idea because it causes the people responsible for making and enforcing the laws to be the ones who benefit from issuing unjustified penalties. Giving it to the federal reserve is no different; it will cause them to soak up more government paper which allows Congress to spend more money which Congress likes and thereby provides them with the perverse incentive to pass bad laws.

An interesting alternative would be to dedicate the money to something that would otherwise be chronically under-funded, like the public defender's office. Which you could then sell as criminals funding the cost of their own defense.

Why not destroy the money? That way it increases the value of all the other dollars and benefits everyone.

I'd much rather the punishment was in the form of time (community service, etc); a monetary fine disproportionately punishes the poor over the rich, but losing four Saturdays stings for just about everybody.

The federal reserve would then have to create new money to replace what was destroyed or it would cause deflation (which is very bad), so what you're suggesting is equivalent to giving the money to the federal reserve.

> But I'm at a loss what to do about it. Is there a way to disassociate enforcement from penalizing?

One way is jury nullification. If a small fraction of the jury pool refused to let the state prosecute these cases, that could be an effective check on certain abuses.

One of the problems here is that these confiscations are done in civil trials, where the right to a jury trial is not always guaranteed (depending on the state).

And even in those states where it is guaranteed, it's often a poor choice for the person whose property has been stolen, since jury trials add significant time and expense.

Not to mention that fact that it's hard to imagine how jury nullification could be constructed to return the property to the accused.

> Is there a way to disassociate enforcement from penalizing?

Do a Google search for "predatory agency." It's an idea that's been kicking around the law+econ community for 20+ years. Think the GAO on steroids, and at the state level too.

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