Tag: police abuse

Taking Our Stuff Back

civil asset forfeiture, police, abuse, robbery, Common Sense

There’s been a big push for criminal justice reform, with some recent progress on civil asset forfeiture.

This is the process through which police and government agencies grab a citizen’s money or property — even if the citizen is never charged with a crime, much less convicted. Then, to get one’s stuff back, a citizen must sue to prove the stuff was innocent of being involved in criminal activity.

Asset forfeiture without a criminal conviction turns our system of justice on its head, encouraging bad behavior by police — ahem, stealing — by rewarding departments and agencies that get to keep the loot.

Reform legislation passed through an Oklahoma House committee earlier this week and now goes to the full House. Television News 9 in Oklahoma City began its report by acknowledging that, “A watered down version of the civil asset forfeiture bill has crossed another hurdle in the state Legislature.”

That’s because a bill to end civil asset forfeiture outright had already failed in the Senate. The currently pending legislation requires that citizens who sue to recover their property and win be awarded their legal fees.

It’s progress … but still not justice enough.

Late last month, Wyoming’s Gov. Matt Mead signed reform legislation mandating that there be a probable cause hearing before the legal forfeiture process can begin. Good. But that was after Gov. Mead vetoed a better bill, which stopped all official, convictionless snatching of stuff.

Police taking people’s stuff without having to prove a crime must be ended altogether, abolished. That means we better stop waiting for politicians. Instead, petition this important principle directly to the people — use ballot initiatives in cities and states across the country.

No time like the present.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags asset forfeiture, ballot initiative, civil asset forfeiture, law, police, police abuse

crime and punishment general freedom government transparency judiciary moral hazard national politics & policies property rights too much government

Government Burglars

If you try to compare those police who take people’s money and property through civil asset forfeiture laws to burglars, who rob folks in more traditional ways, you are just not being fair.

To the burglars.

The Institute for Justice recently released an updated Policing for Profit report showing that federal asset forfeiture topped $5 billion in 2014. The FBI disclosed that in that same year $3.5 billion of value was lost in burglaries.

Then, folks did the math.

Steven Greenhut’s piece at reason.com was headlined, “Cops Now Take More Than Robbers.”

At The Washington Post Wonkblog, Christopher Ingraham explained there was an especially big haul in seized assets in 2014, including $1.7 billion from Bernie Madoff. Moreover, the dollar figure for burglary doesn’t include larceny, motor vehicle theft, etc. All such theft combined totaled more than $12 billion that year.

So, law enforcement isn’t stealing quite as much from citizens as the criminals they are supposed to be protecting us from are. Sort of a backhanded compliment, though.

Recent polling finds more than 70 percent of Americans opposed to seizing assets without a criminal conviction, i.e. innocent until proven guilty, but taking cash and cars and stuff from folks never charged with or convicted of a crime has become a big business for “our” government.

When legislation to mildly reform civil forfeiture failed recently in California, Mr. Greenhut called legislators’ votes “about money, not justice.” Ferocious lobbying by the California District Attorneys Association and the California Police Chiefs warned money-grubbing legislators that budgets would take an $80 to $100 million hit.

Theft is apparently quite lucrative. Who knew?

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, law, police abuse, robbery

Accountability crime and punishment general freedom judiciary moral hazard national politics & policies property rights

Our Innocent Stuff

civil forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, crime, theft, police, abuse, property rights, Common Sense

The Institute for Justice’s new report, Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture, details a “big and growing problem” that “threatens basic rights to property and due process.”

Through both criminal and civil forfeiture laws, governments can seize property used in — or the proceeds of — a crime. Criminal forfeiture requires that a person be charged and convicted of a crime to transfer title to government. Civil forfeiture, on the other hand, allows governments to take people’s stuff without being convicted — or even charged — with a crime.

No surprise that 87 percent of asset forfeiture is now civil, only 13 percent criminal. And governments are grabbing more and more. The federal financial take has grown ten-fold since 2001.

“Every year,” IJ’s researchers document, “police and prosecutors across the United States take hundreds of millions of dollars in cash, cars, homes and other property — regardless of the owners’ guilt or innocence.” Then, the innocent victim must sue the government to have his or her stuff returned.

Incentive to steal? “In most places, cash and property taken boost the budgets of the very police agencies and prosecutor’s offices that took it,” an accompanying IJ video explains.

IJ’s report concludes that, “Short of ending civil forfeiture altogether, at least five reforms can increase protections for property owners and improve transparency.” Those five reforms are improvements, sure, but let’s end civil forfeiture completely.

It’s the principle!

Two principles, actually.

Civil forfeiture laws pretend law enforcement is taking action against our property, and that our property has no rights. But what about our property rights!

We’re innocent until proven guilty, too … and so is our stuff.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags abuse, asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, crime, feds, police, police abuse, property rights, theft

crime and punishment folly general freedom government transparency

Candid Camera

body cam, body cameras, justice reform, feds, federal agents, U.S. Marshals , police, Common Sense

Support for criminal justice reform, especially the common sense use of body cameras for police, marks a bright spot for the Obama Administration.

Or so I thought.

The president has called on local police to don the video devices. He has even offered $75 million of his own hard-earned money to help communities pay for the cameras. No, wait — turns out that $75M is not his personal stash but rather our tax money.

Oh, well. While I think local taxpayers should fund their own police forces, without federal subsidies, at least President O’s administration supports the right policy. No?

“The Justice Department is publicly urging local police departments to adopt body cameras, saying they are an important tool to improve transparency and trust …” reports The Wall Street Journal. “But privately, the department is telling some of its agents they cannot work with officers using such cameras as part of joint task forces …”

Weeks ago, the U.S. Marshals “announced that the agency wouldn’t allow any local law-enforcement officers wearing body cameras to serve on Marshals task forces.…”

I’m only surprised that I’m surprised. I should have known that while preaching to others to use body cameras, the Obama Administration would completely ignore camera use for federal police agencies. I shouldn’t be shocked that it even failed to establish rules for working with local and state police who might be required to wear cameras, at the administration’s urging.

It’s a very candid snapshot of the utter hypocrisy we’ve come to know and loathe from Washington.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags body cam, body cameras, cameras, federal agents, feds, justice reform, police, police abuse, police brutality, U.S. Marshals

Common Sense crime and punishment folly general freedom ideological culture judiciary national politics & policies too much government

Just Doing Our Jobs?

Barber Shop, discrimination, police abuse, Collage, editorial

I didn’t really want to talk about Kim Davis, County Clerk of Rowan County, Kentucky, who refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. Last week, she got put in jail for not doing her job; this week, she got released.

Generally, I’m for people doing their jobs. Especially, those in government.

However, when they are instructed to do something destructive, I’d prefer they refrain. Unfortunately, government workers too often select the wrong things not to enforce. I could use a lot more “blue flu” over Drug War efforts, or stealing our property through civil forfeiture, or shooting pet dogs.

No such luck, usually.

Recently, a 17-year-old boy was charged, as an adult, for child pornography. But the “child porn” was a naked picture of his own body on his very own cell phone. A law designed to protect him from sexual exploitation was turned against him, making him a “sexual predator.”

The police and prosecutor in this North Carolina case didn’t really do their jobs.

In Washington County, Pennsylvania, a barbershop has been fined $750 for refusing to cut one woman’s hair. The owner claims he has nothing against doing women’s hair, but merely that this particular shop wasn’t set up to handle women’s typical hair concerns. Public servants fined him anyway.

Do we really need government to patrol beauty salons and barbershops for “discrimination” “crimes”?

After all, they cannot even patrol themselves coherently. Witness the messy case of Kim Davis, Democratic County clerk in rural Kentucky. About which I hope I need not say more.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Tags gay marriage, Kim Davis, marriage, police abuse, pornography, same-sex marriage

crime and punishment general freedom too much government

Why Police-State Tactics?

What do the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, and campaign finance law have in common?

Police-state tactics.

Most folks now understand how the War on Drugs and the War on Terror can erode civil liberties — but how does campaign finance law fit in with the other two?

My weekend Townhall column explains.

Several years ago, Wisconsin’s Republican Governor Scott Walker sought to tame public unions in his state, and against much opposition — quite a bit of it national — not only succeeded in changing law but beat back a recall vote as well.

So Democratic Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm orchestrated a crack-down on conservative groups supportive of Walker’s reforms, complete with night-time SWAT-team raids on the homes of activists who were, they judged, “on the wrong side.”

The thin rationale was possible campaign finance violations, the idea that citizens and their organizations “coordinating” with the governor to advocate for public policies is somehow illegal.

The police state tactics were used because they were available. And obviously thought to be politically acceptable. That the courts have now ruled the means — indeed, the whole probe by prosecutors — unconstitutional doesn’t negate the terrifying fact that the state used such horrific methods to attack peaceful people.

Clearly, people in government have used understandable fears regarding drugs and terrorism to erode our liberties, even when the “crimes” they fight with such illiberal overkill have nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with drugs or terror.

Except the drug that is — and the terror wielded by — out-of-control government.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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