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The Amount of Police Civil Forfeiture is Now More than All Civilian Theft and Burglary Combined (medium.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
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[–] 35 points 2 years ago

Tyrants recognized centuries ago that the surest way to guarantee the enthusiasm and loyalty of their mercenary thugs was to let them loot their victims.

And nothing really has changed since then.

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    [–] 10 points 2 years ago (12 children)

    What exactly happens with things taken through civil forfeiture...? Like... Who gets it? Is it sold/auctioned? Who gets the money...?

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  • [–] 17 points 2 years ago (11 children)

    The police department gets it. If you want your money back it's the seized money vs the state in a court, not you personally vs the state, the money itself vs the state.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (10 children)

    But like... What does the department do with it? Do they just give it to indevual cops? If it's money does it become part of their budget?

    Also, the case is "your money" vs " the state"? How the fuck does that work? This shit is so confusing 😅

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  • [–] 11 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    These laws, like so many, were initially put into place to punish drug dealers. But like most laws geared towards the War on Drugs™ the cops realized they could use it against anyone and gleefully have ever since. It's not just money, they'll seize a person's home even if the homeowner had no idea their child or guest had drugs there.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Yup, in most states, it's anything the money COULD have been used on, and it's on you to prove the money was not used towards that item. You paid for new brakes on your car while gainfully employed, but you were also selling weed? Some part of that money WAS from drug sales - your car is now ours.

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  • [–] 6 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Goes into the budget is my understanding. It becomes departmental funds.

    Very very poorly for the individual because your intent cannot be factored into the case. The money itself has to be proven innocent from criminal activity. It's essentially designed to be as hard as possible for the individual to get their money back. I am not a lawyer and I am pulling this from memory so i could be wildly off base with this.

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    • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Unionized gang

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    [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Are we finally ready to introduce this conversation to the larger political stage?

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    [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    How much of this is drug related to. The drug laws do no one any good.

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