
Inside the Chicago Police Department’s secret budget - zmanian
http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chicago-police-department-civil-forfeiture-investigation/Content?oid=23728922
======
silvercoast
I've had my property stolen by the police twice. The first time was 14 years
ago when I was falsely accused of stealing two cell phones. There was a video
surveillance tape of the theft, two other guys clearly did it but the store
employee tried to claim I knew them. He happened to be the boyfriend of an ex-
girlfriend.

It took me a year to fight it and when the charges were finally dismissed, I
got all my property back except my $500 cell phone. It was a basic misdemeanor
charge but I was threatened with an unrelated felony if I didn't take a plea
deal. I refused and the prosecutor moved to withdraw the case citing lack of
evidence, preventing me from winning via acquittal.

The fact that I was falsely accused of stealing two cheap cell phones and then
the police stole my phone instilled a permanent distrust in the police.

Then recently, I got involved in a dispute with a roommate and all my property
was taken to a police warehouse. When I went to get it, the police officer
told me there had been a robbery and all my stuff was stolen. About $6000
worth including priceless family items.

I'm a white guy who doesn't break the law, although I am a bit politically
active and rebellious. What I have experienced by the police and justice
system is enraging and disenfrancising. If I was surrounded by poverty and
crime, and had no hope for the future, I could see myself becoming emboldened
against the police and turn into a life of crime.

The way they treat people is wrong. The plea bargin system is a worse crime
than most of the petty offenses people do. The way they treat you in jail is
malicious and purposely antagonistic. It's a mild form of torture that doesn't
rise to sensational levels but it perpetuates and sustains an atmosphere of
distrust and hatred towards authority figures.

~~~
criley2
"The way they treat you in jail is malicious and purposely antagonistic. It's
a mild form of torture that doesn't rise to sensational levels but it
perpetuates and sustains an atmosphere of distrust and hatred towards
authority figures."

I was taken into jail (a holding cell in a county prison) for failing to pay a
fine for a non-moving violation, and sat next to murderers, wife beaters and
cop-killers awaiting transfer.

When I asked for a method to remove my contacts which were causing me
significant pain and discomfort (they are NOT over nights), I was told "deal
with it, this is jail".

Purposely antagonistic and mildly torturous is definitely their intent.

But I don't blame them, based on whom I was surrounded by. I wouldn't give an
inch to the guys laughing and joking about beating up their girlfriends, her
kids, the cops, etc, either.

~~~
hbt
I do blame them.

You're in a cage. They are outside the cage. You ask. They have no incentive
to comply. The power dynamics are not in your favor and that's why they can
treat you poorly and get away with it.

Poor treatment in jails/prison helps no one. Everyone who goes to jail is not
a cop-killer or wife beater. Even those people do not deserve poor treatment.

I get it. It's easier to generalize then treat each individual as a special
snowflake. However, some people would rather kill themselves than go to
prison. This also makes the job of police officer more dangerous if people
would rather die than surrender knowing all that awaits for them is torture
(sleep deprivation, disgusting food, forced labor, isolation, confined spaces,
rape etc.).

We do not treat criminals as human beings. We offer them no path to be
rehabilitated. They cannot vote, cannot get jobs easily and are social
outcasts. You'd be surprised by the amount of people who committed non-
violent, victimless crimes and had their lives ruined forever by this broken
system.

I understand the police officer is not exactly a social worker. They are a cog
in the system but they are not helping, not attempting to improve/change the
system and are to blame (along with prosecutor, the justice system and
authorities in general).

It boils down to one thing: They have POWER and you don't. They play a role in
maintaining the status quo, you don't. Therefore, they are to blame.

Sorry for the rant, it boils my blood when people with no power make excuses
for the poor treatment they received from people with actual power.

------
djsumdog
Civil forfeiture, plea bargains and losing the ability to vote are all great
detriments to our society. They prevent those who are involved in crimes from
being able to get back on their feet and show an increasing number of those in
the justice system don't believe in rehabilitation. It's labelling theory in
practice and it's the reason the US has the highest incarceration and repeat
incarceration rate of the western world.

Plea bargains reward disloyalty and often allow some of the worst people a
ticket out of their crimes by implicating someone else. It's just a game and
prosecutors want their stats to go up, no matter what is good for society.

I don't even want to touch the sex offender registry. I'll just say this.
Australia's registry is confidential.

~~~
protomyth
> sex offender registry

If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't let
them out, ever. If that's not the case, then anything past their incarceration
/ parole is blatantly unfair.

~~~
adekok
> If we as a society believe the person is still a danger, then we shouldn't
> let them out, ever.

Well, no.

After multiple DUIs, someone can have their license taken away permanently.
The justice system has a long history of restricting peoples behavior who are
(a) out of jail, but (b) still a danger to themselves or others.

~~~
hossbeast
Long history doesn't make it right

~~~
LyndsySimon
According to the courts, it makes it legal.

------
adekok
"Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year"

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-
took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/)

Who, exactly, do we need protection from?

~~~
nickff
This is one argument that many anarchists make; the truth is that (at the very
least) an order of magnitude more people were killed by their own governments
in the 20th century than were killed by their fellow citizens. Hobbes was
wrong.

~~~
linkregister
Is it accurate to imply that the Soviets and Chinese had any sense of
ownership of their governments? Especially with the forced starvation of
Ukraine, it was practically a foreign occupation (this is muddy, Kyiv is a
historic center of Russia).

I don't think it's a refutation of Hobbes that a dictator could seize control
of a state and perpetrate mass murder.

~~~
nickff
Hobbes made the case that a totalitarian dictator was the least likely to
perpetrate mass murder; according to his ideas, the democracies would be more
violent.

~~~
adekok
Hobbes was wrong.

[http://popten.net/2010/05/top-ten-most-evil-dictators-of-
all...](http://popten.net/2010/05/top-ten-most-evil-dictators-of-all-time-in-
order-of-kill-count/)

No democratic country has killed millions of it's own citizens. Even Hitler
waited until he changed the law to give himself dictatorial powers.

------
protomyth
_" The judge said, 'I can't give you back your car, because it would be right
back on the road with drugs.' " (Karkula declined to comment for this story.)_

This is why civil forfeiture should be banned. I'm still of the opinion that
any ticket money should be handed over to a superfund with strict rules on
spending never to return to the police or judicial coffers.

~~~
brianwawok
Why not all go to Charity?

Anything else is a conflict of interests. Send it to an out of state charity.
I am fine with taking a car used in a crime away, but you can't give the money
to the person who took the car nor the court that decides..

~~~
nickff
There are already a number of arrangements where corporations can pay
penalties to 'approved' charities instead of the regulator as part or all of
an agreement; these deals have been problematic, as the government officials
appear to be using the arrangements to favor interest groups and potential
future employers.

I am not saying your idea is a bad one, but I think it is useful to know where
the potential problems lie.

~~~
protomyth
Its that part of government's version of giving a contract to a company then
being hired by said company after leaving government. Both should be illegal.

------
akama
Hi, I'm one of the people who worked on some of the data visualization for
this story. The people behind this worked very hard and did an excellent job.
I would also like to point out, this is why police transparency is very
important in modern society.

~~~
alexbeloi
The outside blue field on the pie chart has no title when you hover over it
(purchases under $5000).

And having the text be upside down for half of the chart is pretty bad
(another way to do it: [http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2015/07/pie-
chart-...](http://media.treehugger.com/assets/images/2015/07/pie-
chart-234234234.jpg.662x0_q70_crop-scale.jpg))

This comment is meant in good faith, it's an important story and topic and
visualizing the impact is very useful. I appreciate the work that went into
it.

edit: I just noticed you can click on the fields, very cool!

~~~
akama
Thanks for the suggestions, I didn't think about flipping the text for that
half of the chart but that's a good idea. I'm not sure about the blank label
but I'll look into that.

------
atombath
Shown here are two good reasons for why people don't respect the police
anymore. They take your assets due to a subtle association to a crime. They
spend it without oversight on tools of mass surveillance. Ultimately, both of
these things exacerbate crime. Quite an occupying force nowadays.

~~~
simplemath
There are many police departments that should be brought up on RICO charges.

------
crooked-v
I find it absurd that civil forfeiture would be "reformed" instead of
recognized as blatantly unconstitutional.

~~~
brianwawok
If you are found with a big pile of drugs and 100k in cash.. it is not
unreasonable to take the cash away. Otherwise you would be allowed to profit
from an illegal activity.

Giving that money to the guy doing the arresting or the court doing the trial
is the problem....

~~~
adekok
I'll upvote because you're not entirely wrong. It's entirely reasonable to
require that the proceeds of criminal activity be taken from the criminals.
Whether it's a stolen car, drugs, or money made from selling a stolen car and
drugs. It's all (mostly) similar.

The devil is in the details, though. The rampant "theft by cop" is where you
have money, and they take it. No charges, much less conviction.

It's "guilty until proven innocent", which violates one of the fundamental
principles of our justice system. It's outright corruption.

~~~
wyldfire
> Whether it's a stolen car, drugs, or money made from selling a stolen car
> and drugs. It's all (mostly) similar.

It's not that similar IMO. Stolen cars have owners to whom you can return the
property, or litigants who can sue you to replace it. But selling contraband,
unlike theft, doesn't have a victim that can be compensated by returning the
proceeds. The government steps in and declares themselves the victims of this
crime and claims the proceeds.

~~~
ocschwar
So far so good.

The problem is they do it before convicting you of anything.

~~~
wfo
Actually, worse: they seize your assets so that you cannot afford to mount a
solid defense at your trial. It's a lot easier to convince someone to take a
plea (i.e. confess falsely under duress) if they are bankrupt and destitute
and can't afford proper counsel.

------
snsr
"Civil forfeiture" is theft. It's also plainly unconstitutional.

~~~
DannyBee
Except, it's plainly not. Seriously. It's been around since the 1600's and
every supreme court that has ever existed in the US has found it
constitutional.

You can claim they are all wrong, it's literally not unconstitutional, because
in our system, that's what the supreme court decides.

Now, there are more reasonable arguments that some of the current approaches
do not comport with due process, but that's not as blanket a statement as you
are making here.

~~~
snsr
It's unjust, particularly in it's current implementation, and it completely
circumvents due-process.

At least in the US, which wasn't a nation in 1600, this is a prohibition-era
deterrent that was reinstated by Reagan to punish drug users, and has been
more currently used to fund law enforcement agencies in an astonishingly
offensive manner.

~~~
DannyBee
Sure, i'd agree it's unjust in _some_ of the current implementation (there are
something like 800+ federal statutes that have some form of asset forfeiture,
so you'd need to be more specific which you think are unjust)

While i think, policy wise, it's as dumb as the next guy, I'm just pointing
out this is being painted with too broad a brush from a constitutional
standpoint

------
Bud
Civil forfeiture must end. But until it can be ended, the least we can do is
to make certain that any forfeited funds do NOT go to the police departments
which hold power over deciding these cases. The funds should go to the federal
government so that there is no local incentive to unjustly seize assets from
citizens. That much should be obvious, in a democracy, right?

------
zmanian
Governor Brown signed a massive civil forfeiture reform for California today.

[https://www.aclunc.org/news/gov-brown-signs-historic-bill-
re...](https://www.aclunc.org/news/gov-brown-signs-historic-bill-rein-asset-
forfeiture-abuse-paving-way-other-
states?utm_source=social&utm_campaign=news&utm_medium=facebook)

------
Sleaker
Woah, seems crazy that the police can keep something that was technically
stolen property and not return it to the original owner. How can a judge argue
that it will just be used to transfer drugs again, it's not the drug
offender's property and she wasn't accessory... That's not relevant to the
case, the owner isn't using it to traffic drugs.

IANAL, just confused.

~~~
madcowherd
I'm also perplexed about this. Anyone's car could be stolen, and then used to
commit any number of crimes. Maybe the woman in the article didn't report the
car as stolen?

~~~
Sleaker
maybe, because it was her own son and she didn't want him to face more
jailtime? I thought it didn't matter though, I thought the owner could choose
not to prosecute, or tell them to drop the case.. or maybe that's on a state-
by-state level.

------
bdavisx
I wonder if there are any statistics on race vs. forfeiture.

~~~
djtriptych
My interest in race here is that these practices were probably inflicted on
blacks _first_, probably without white objection.

It's decades later and the laws that allowed police to terrorize blacks are
gradually being extended to all races. I worry that this pattern will repeat
itself.

~~~
LyndsySimon
This is how the vast majority of freedom-limiting laws have been implemented
in the US.

Marriage licensing, gun control, and drug prohibition immediately spring to
mind. Gun control in particular is a topic I'm invested in - see JPFO's video
"No Guns for Negroes": [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaX3EM-
fsc8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RaX3EM-fsc8)

------
wehadfun
This is why we need to stop only caring about the presidential election and
focus on local politics.

------
xg15
All the other reasons in the thread why civil asset forfeiture is bad aside,
it seems to me like a cood vehicle for corruption, too.

Imagine I run a drug cartel and want to make a deal with some corrupt cops.
How can I pay them without raising suspicion? Simple:

\- Open a new bank account and transfer the payment to it;

\- Given an "anonymous" hint to the cops that the bank account is connected to
the cartel; (indeed it is)

\- The corrupt cops could seize the money using asset forfeiture and even make
a nice PR show how it allows them to make progress in the war against drugs...

------
throw004
$19000 for one month's use of cellphones? Sounds like corruption to me.

~~~
soylentcola
Nah, Chicago's a big Verizon town.

------
gravypod
"Routine> 18.6 million"

Holy crap.

------
Grollicus
Why is this on HN? Who cares how Americans abuse their poor? Whats that to do
with technology?

