Civil Asset Forfeiture Part Two: Arguments, History, and Reform
In part one, I introduced and explained the practice of civil forfeiture. We examined the extent to which it has been abused, and how bad incentives have led to corruption in law enforcement. We also analyzed the disproportionate effect it has on the poor and minorities. Once police departments get their hands on a load of cash from some poor minorities, they have an unusual degree of freedom to spend it. The money must go towards things within the scope of the department’s needs, and it typically does. However, the largely unsupervised budget sometimes funds the further militarization of the police, buying armored personnel carriers, mobile command buses, and helicopters. Whether some of those purchases are necessary is debatable, but others are definitely unjustified, such as excessively expensive sports cars used as police cruisers or undercover vehicles. Here is a short list of wasteful spending by some departments. Albany, New York, Police Department: $7,711 on photogra...