Report Show Police Using Asset Seizure To Bolster Budgets
Source: mintpressnews.com
The rights afforded to people by the U.S. Constitution do not extend to their property. This means that when a law enforcement official suspects that someone’s property — including his or her car, money, home or gun — was involved in a crime, the official can seize that property and keep it.When this happens, there’s next to nothing that individual can do about it.
Known as civil asset forfeiture, or “policing for profit,” the lawful policing policy is often described as a legal statute that most members of the public are largely unaware of until they or someone they know is affected.
Introduced in the 18th century, civil asset forfeiture was originally intended as a means for the U.S. government to legally claim the rights to items or “loot” left behind by pirates. Today, the law is reportedly used as a tool for dismantling large-scale drug operations, which is why civil asset forfeiture is more common in the Midwest and Southern states than in states with more progressive drug laws, such as California, Oregon and Washington state.
However, the practice is increasingly being seen as a way for police departments to make up for lost revenue. This is because people have had thousands of dollars in cash taken from them without being tried in court or even charged with a crime. The case of Alda Gentile, who was carrying $11,000 that she had planned to use to buy a home, is just one example of this.
According to the Institute for Justice, law enforcement in Minnesota seized more than $6.6 million worth of goods in 2012, 90 percent of which was used to supplement law enforcement budgets. The nonprofit law firm also noted that the police officers were not exactly seizing Ferraris and mansions from drug kingpins, as less than 4 percent of property seized in the state between 2003 and 2010 was worth more than $5,000.
In fact, the average value of property seized by law enforcement was only worth around $1,250, and it costs an average of $2,500 to challenge civil asset forfeiture in court.
Forfeited cash is often just put into the coffers of police departments, while property such as cars, guns or even PlayStations are often put up for auction. In the case of an auction, law enforcement keeps the profits from any sales.
One may assume that the Fourth Amendment would protect Gentile from having $11,000 in cash taken from her after she was stopped for speeding, especially since there isn’t a law dictating how much cash a person can legally carry. But there’s actually a loophole in the law that allows law enforcement to seize cash, stocks, real estate, vehicles, guns and other property, and keep it. Even if an individual is not charged or arrested for their involvement in any sort of crime, his or her property can still be seized lawfully because the property was suspected of having been involved in a crime. was essentially found guilty of being involved in a crime.
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Read the full article at: mintpressnews.com
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