I noticed a “military fetish” in my local county sheriff department years ago. I’m not talking about the tactics, but just the habit of deputies to wear military style gear more and more. On some (local) guys, it’s just a little thing. Like a special web gear holster with the leg strap at the bottom. But I see out-of-town cops who come to my town for training (My county is the regional center for law enforcement training). Many of the small-town cops wear what amounts to battle dress uniforms, right down to olive drab jumpsuits and web gear.
I’ve wondered why, when they just have to arrest one suspect and serve a warrant on the house, they don’t just wait until the guy leaves and nab him, then take his keys and waltz in to the house.
Lemme rephrase that…I know exactly why they don’t. Doing it like that wouldn’t give anybody involved a hard-on.
“standard issue street soldier”
You say that as if you believed the officers themselves were being awarded a portion of the spoils like an 18th century naval prize, rather than those confiscated goods either just being destroyed, languishing forever in an evidence locker, or being sold at auction and the revenue going into the municipal fund.
Because giving the suspect more time to destroy evidence is generally not seen as a good thing?
I suspect the people complaining about the “militarization” of the police are the same people who would have complained 100 years ago that the police were being given guns and automobiles and call boxes, and who would have complained 200 years ago that we were getting police at all when the power of hue and cry had been working just fine for catching the odd cattle rustler or highwayman.
It doesn’t go to a municipal fund, it goes toward the police budget. The officers DO get personally rewarded in the form of new and better equipment, vehicles and weapons. The recipe for corruption is greatest in smaller juristictions where individuals are harder to distinguish from the force.
Cite?
I think you’ll find the Democrats are not holding the leash of the Ogden, UT police.
Here’s a shitload of them. Enjoy!
And of course, police officers don’t receive confiscated money themselves … officially … that we know of.
Are you saying that the seized money goes into a general fund rather than specifically the Police budget? I think you might be wrong there.
So your answer is that you have no cite.
The Institute for Justice has a fairly lengthy articleon asset forfeiture, and just where the proceeds go. If you just want an example from the ACLU, try this small article. Finally, this abstract is shorter still. From the abstract:
This is from 2002, incidentally. I doubt the situation has improved from a civil liberties point of view since then.
Edit: Oh, and money is fungible. So, even if the proceeds don’t come with a Xmas tag to the department(s), every dollar that goes into the city/state/federal government’s general fund, is one more dollar available to be sent to law enforcement.
I’m not really sure how keeping the police department solvent is a civil liberties issue.
That’s because you are giving this a very superficial examination. When policing pays for itself this way it is going to distort* their priorities and methods.
*at least influence strongly
If their priority is “catching big-time criminals”, then I can’t see how it’s a bad thing.
Well, grabbing their money is more important than catching the criminal. Is that a bad thing to you?
They can’t very well do one without doing the other, can they?
It has negative ramifications in terms of where police attention will be focused. Big-time criminals, by and large, are profit-driven. They’re not generally violent. Beyond that, big-time criminal enterprise should be handled at the state or federal level. I would prefer that my municipal police department focus on rapes, murders and burglaries than on drugs and money laundering (which, off the top of my head, are the only common criminal activities likely to generate substantial sums to size.)
Read the articles that I linked already. If the police are a for-profit institution, as asset forfeiture is helping them to be, then they will prefer activities that maximize the profit they can make.
This includes: increased DUI checkpoints, if the state allows for the seizure of the vehicle used by the driver; an increase in In Rem actions against cash (go look at the examples in Tenaha, Texas, and the police unjustly confiscating cash from primarily African-Americans. There are plenty of other accounts. I wouldn’t be surprised to see many in Evil Captor’s list.); increased drug raids, which per Balko’s book, are increasingly militarized and very dangerous for all involved. Hell, just look at the examples of communities setting up red light cameras, then altering the yellow light times to decrease safety, yet increase the likelihood of a red-light violation.
Or you can nitpick something in either my posts or Evil Captor’s, instead of taking the time to read the well-sourced paper from the IJ. It’s up to you.
Umm, no. You can easily siphon a portion of drug money forever without ever catching the big time criminal. Since drug dealers adjust prices to reflect siezures, it’s win-win for the cops and the crooks. Not so much for people who want criminals caught, which I thought you might get behind.
DUI, drug smuggling, and running red lights are all illegal activities, are they not?
I can’t find it in me to get worked up or morally outraged by the idea of the police using their resources to better enforce the law.