Tag: theft

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crime and punishment Popular property rights

Of Loot and Leverage

civil asset forfeiture, police, corruption, theft

Without a special kicker, why should police bother to do their jobs? 

The subject is civil asset forfeiture. This legal procedure makes it easy to take property from criminals. For the War on Drugs, civil forfeiture was so loosened as to allow police to take property from anyone … without due process.

No wonder citizens in a number of states have demanded limits upon the practice. 

But since police departments get to keep the loot they “interdict” — spending it on better cars, weapons, office furniture, plush employee lounges, drug-​sniffing dogs — law enforcement personnel aren’t exactly always on board with citizens’ concerns.

Jarrod Bruder, South Carolina Sheriff’s Association executive director, defends the sorry practice, as quoted by Greenville News. He asks what, sans civil forfeiture’s profit motive, could be a cop’s “incentive to go out and make a special effort?” 

Dollars to donuts, this will not play well with those who distrust the police already. 

And note the biggest incentive police face: to take property away from innocent people. Easier pickin’s. No surprise, then, that in “19 percent of cases, there is no criminal arrest.”*

Meanwhile, Senator Ted Cruz (R‑Tex.) has suggested that President Trump take the confiscated billions from the accounts of drug kingpin El Chapo to “build the Wall.”

Genius? 

Regardless, this mere suggestion could add incentives for pro-​Wall Republicans to go soft on civil asset forfeiture.

There is no point in being secure within our borders if we are not secure within our homes and wallets and cars and … any other place jeopardized by this police-​state practice.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

*Blacks represent 71 percent of cases, while only 28 percent of the state population.

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civil asset forfeiture, police, corruption, theft

Photo Credit: Chase Carter on Flickr

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general freedom property rights

And So It Begins

Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi

“Your time is up, white people,” South African politician Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi offered.

This woman, who belongs to the Economic Freedom Fighters, a “far left” political party, is defending something Frédéric Bastiat would have dubbed the very worst kind of “legal plunder”: in this case, a land grab from white farmers to give to (some) blacks, without compensation.

“White South Africans could be forced to give up their own homes from next year as the nation’s government steamrolls through plans for land expropriation,” Zoie O’Brien reports for Britain’s Daily Mail. Why? Well, “over claims ‘Africa’s original sin’ must be reversed.”

There will be no reversal, of course. Not of “Africa’s original sin,” which, I dare suggest, mischaracterizes the problems of South Africa.

And yes, I know, it is complicated, since “many in the nation see the move as retribution.” For past white supremacist racial policies.

But justice simply cannot be two wrongs. For what is happening in South Africa is the gearing up for a mass crime. 

They call it “land reform,” of course. Lots of tragedies begin that way. Ask the people of the country formerly called Rhodesia. 

I’ve referred to South Africa’s gross dysfunction before. There appears to be an instinctive media downplaying of this matter, largely because of past racism and the “white people bad” mentality now too common.

Your time is up, white people. Racism. Sure. (No point in just calling it “reverse racism.”) A crime against the owners of property. The wrong way to address problems, surely.

And ominous, for rarely does an enormity like this stop just there.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi

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Accountability crime and punishment moral hazard property rights U.S. Constitution

Forfeiting Common Sense

civil, asset, forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, cash, grocery bag, Whole Foods, theft, police, corruption

Is it okay to steal if you can get away with it?

A full answer would require a treatise. But most of us common-​sensibly understand that evil does not magically become good when perpetrators are not stopped or punished. Thrasymachus was wrong to contend, in Plato’s Republic, that justice is merely the “interest of the stronger.”

When it comes to crimes like bank robberies, muggings and car jackings, we have no doubts about this. In such blatant cases, we suffer nothing like the legitimate confusion to which we may be prone regarding the exact border between adjacent parcels of land or the niceties of intellectual property law.

Well, somebody tell the New Hampshire state police.

Some of them apparently believe it’s okay to steal if you can evade laws against the stealing.

New Hampshire’s recent reform of civil forfeiture laws requires criminal conviction of a person before there can be any forfeiture of his property. But a loophole enabled officers to grab $46,000 of Edward Phipps’s money — from his car, stopped on the road — even though he was never accused of a crime. 

How?

It seems that if state cops collaborate with the feds, safeguards established to prevent such abuse can be evaded.

To retrieve even a little of his money ($7,000), Mr. Phipps was forced to relinquish all claim to the balance ($39,000). Even if lawmakers close the loophole, as they should, the robber-​cops will probably get away with this particular larceny. 

They shouldn’t.

That’s injustice, not common sense.  I’m Paul Jacob.

 

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Photo Credit: N.H. State Police

 

Categories
meme

The Socialist Pledge

socialism, yours is mine, sharing, theft, stealing

What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine…

is mine.

Categories
Accountability local leaders moral hazard porkbarrel politics responsibility tax policy too much government

Panic in the Prairie State

Illinois, pensions, politicians, taxes, tax, theft, shake down

When your state has the lowest credit rating in the union, the highest population decline rate, and spends nearly a quarter of its annual budget on an out-​of-​control government-​employee pension system, what do you do?

Raise taxes, of course!

That’s the advice of experts in Illinois, anyway.

You can see why they panic: The unfunded portion of Illinois’s public employee pension system amounts to $11,000 per person in the state. Something extraordinary must be done.

Yet, as Pat Hughes at the Illinois Opportunity Project insists, taxpayers need relief — not a statewide 1 percent property tax increase.

Besides, it is not as if tax hikes could solve the problem. “It was just last year that politicians raised the state income tax by 32 percent in a desperate attempt to balance the budget,” Hughes explains. “Despite over $5 billion in new taxes, the state was back in deficit spending in less than a year.” 

Hughes mentions a number of tax limitation measures in the works. More power to them. 

But what’s needed even more? Spending limitation measures.

No government can be trusted to offer anything but defined-​contribution pensions — and no government, at any level, should ever manage a pension system. Politicians can’t help themselves. They just cannot resist the temptation to buy off the government-​worker constituency by promising more in the future than financially feasible (or just plain old politically possible) to pay for now. 

Other people’s money is theirs to spend. And a future financial bind? Some other politician’s problem. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

N.B. Congratulations to the Illinois Policy Institute for its Liberty Center, which won its case against forced unionization, Janus v. American Federation, on June 27. Commentary about this Supreme Court case appeared on this site in early May, “Post Blindfold.”

 

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Categories
Accountability crime and punishment general freedom moral hazard national politics & policies privacy property rights too much government U.S. Constitution

Guilty of Innocence

Spencer Byrd, crime, asset forfeiture, police, Chicago, law enforcement, theft, stealing, government

If you are innocent of a crime, should you be punished as if guilty? Despite no arrest, no trial, no conviction?

If you say “Yes,” raise your hand.

I see no raised hands among my regular readers. But my readers don’t include the wicked Chicago officials who impounded the automobile of Spencer Byrd.

Byrd’s case is reported in a Reason article by C.J. Ciaramella. The author relates how Chicago extracts money by grabbing the vehicles of innocent people. The drug war and asset forfeiture laws help make it possible. 

Byrd is a carpenter and auto mechanic who sometimes gives rides to clients stuck without their cars. One night, when he was stopped on the road for an allegedly broken turn signal, police discovered that a new client riding with him was carrying heroin. Byrd was questioned but quickly released. He was never charged with a crime. 

But his car was impounded; it’s been impounded for years. This has hurt his business. For one thing, he has $3,500 worth of tools in the trunk. 

Byrd persuaded a judge to order that his car be returned to him. But the city still wouldn’t release it unless Byrd paid $8,790 in fees and fines (later reduced to $2,000). He is still struggling to retrieve his car, within a labyrinth the injustices of which I’ve barely touched on. 

May I suggest … ? If you do ever recover your Cadillac, Mr. Byrd, put pedal to the floor and get the heck out of Dodge.

I mean, Chicago.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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