Those who favor civil asset forfeiture argue that it helps law enforcement fight crime by depriving criminals of the resources used to perpetrate crimes. But, critics argue, that it is nothing more than a revenue-generating scheme. Many have criticized policing for profit, including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

In the case of Leonard v. Texas, he laid out his case when writing his opinion. He noted that “unlike a criminal case in which a prosecutor must prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, in a civil forfeiture case, the prosecutor only needs to establish the basis for the forfeiture by a preponderance of the evidence.” //

State governments have raked in tons of cash from civil asset forfeiture. In 2017, Texas’ law enforcement took in about $50 million, which included people who were not charged or convicted of a crime. Since the state’s attorney general does not distinguish between the two when calculating the numbers, it is not known exactly how many were never charged. Since 2000, state and federal governments have taken at least $68.8 billion, according to the Institute for Justice. //

According to the Institute for Justice, the clearance rates for violent crimes tends to drop as the amount of forfeiture revenue increases. This Is largely due to the fact that when police are hunting for cash drug offenders, they are not as focused on addressing violent criminals. Moreover, the practice has not led to a decline in drug use in communities in which it is used. //

C. S. P. Schofield
6 hours ago
“ The rationale behind this practice is the notion that property can be charged with an offense, even if the person who owns it has not been charged or even convicted. Proponents argue that this ability is critical to the efforts of law enforcement to crack down on crime.”

This is the inevitable consequence of the “we gotta get them goddamned drug dealers” mentality that has driven the War On Drugs my whole life. RICO, Asset Forfeiture, no-knock raids, and so on are all justified to ‘get’ drug dealers…and gradually crept into general use on the population.

I like cops, as a rule. I have only had one bad interaction with a policeman (rent-a-cops are another matter), and his own department was trying like hell to get rid of him (thank you, civil service rules). But the War On Drugs has made a LEO culture that has much broken about it.

I don’t think street drugs are a good thing. I’ve known junkies, and they were mostly sad, broken people, and often seriously untrustworthy. But the fallout of the War On Drugs seems to me to be worse than the drugs themselves.