Police State America, Policing For Profit, Media Cover Up, Video

Police and prosecutors’ offices seize private property—often without ever charging the owners with a crime, much less convicting them of one—then keep or sell what they’ve taken and use the profits to fund their budgets. And considering law enforcement officials in most states don’t report the value of what they collect or how that bounty is spent, the issue raises serious questions about both government transparency and accountability.

Under state and federal civil asset forfeiture laws, law enforcement agencies can seize and keep property suspected of involvement in criminal activity. Unlike criminalasset forfeiture, however, with civilforfeiture, a property owner need not be found guilty of a crime—or even charged—to permanently lose her cash, car, home or other property.

ASSET FORFEITURE: The police can seize your property without charging you with a crime!

There is something terribly disturbing about this “policing for profit” trend, especially in our current world, where the number of laws keeps proliferating. We’ve all become accustomed to police increasing their ticket-writing to backfill their budgets, but asset forfeiture takes the profiteering to a new and disturbing level. Agencies know that it’s so costly for people to fight their forfeiture proceedings that many victims simply cede the property without a fight. That’s wrong.