
Police Civil Asset Forfeitures Exceed All Burglaries in 2014 - ccvannorman
http://www.armstrongeconomics.com/archives/39102
======
nickpsecurity
Keep this in mind when police or politicians push any legislation to give them
more power over you, do more surveillance, or have less accountability.
Especially as they push it over the "threat" of ISIS. Remember that they do
more financial damage and kill more people than any terrorist outfit outside
one-hit-wonders like 9/11.

We need to fight civil forfeiture and all legislation like it.

~~~
privacy101
Even if you added deaths by police and deaths by terrorists together, it would
probably still not be in the top 50 leading causes of death (I'm still trying
to find data with all causes of deaths in the US).

~~~
simplify
True, but people fear terrorism because it's something they can't control.
Police are also something people can't control, so comparing police deaths to
terrorism deaths is a great comparison.

~~~
dopamean
I think a lot of people think they can control police deaths. I think a lot of
people see a young man killed by the police and think "that would never be me;
I'd just do what they ask" or "my son would be polite and not argue so he
wouldn't find himself in that situation." I think that is the reason police
brutality issues are so hard to solve.

~~~
simplify
That's a good point; I can see and understand people rationalizing like that.
It's unfortunate that many will never experience the reality of being a
minority in police situations.

------
Animats
Home burglary is almost dead. What's to steal? Any TV you can carry is almost
worthless. There's no market in used desktop computers, or used furniture.
Nobody has cameras any more. Few people keep much cash around. Phones are
probably in the owner's pocket, not left in their house. And because the
economy is down at the low end, pawn shops and flea markets are choked with
stuff they can't sell.

There have been single white collar crimes that exceed the value of all US
burglaries. Madoff alone stole more than five years of burglaries.

The FBI has their priorities wrong. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports tally a
burglary when it is reported, but a while collar crime only when an arrest is
made. This creates the illusion that white collar crime is much smaller than
it is.

~~~
caf
We were burgled last week, and they stole thousands of dollars worth of
jewellery, a laptop and two ipads...

...and the spare key for my car, which they used to steal the car.

~~~
danso
Sorry for your loss, but thanks for the reminder that I shouldn't be keeping
my spare key in a visible place when I leave home.

~~~
caf
I'm thinking that a small safe is probably the best bet, which can also be
used to store documents like passports.

~~~
jschwartzi
Make sure it's bolted down too. As a rule, expect it to be about as difficult
to remove as it was to install.

------
tomohawk
Any assets seized by police should be counted as revenue, and should go to the
general fund to be allocated by the legislature. Separation of powers.

~~~
bo1024
Any assets seized by police should be burned in a bonfire.* Anything else
causes poorly-aligned incentives.

*OK, maybe I would agree with donated to certain causes, if chosen carefully.

~~~
tomohawk
I'd actually go further. The 5th Amendment to the US Constitution would appear
to ban this activity.

"No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime,
unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising
in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time
of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence
to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life,
liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property
be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Rand Paul has introduced legislation to restore the protection the amendment
should provide: [https://reason.com/blog/2015/01/27/rand-paul-reintroduces-
bi...](https://reason.com/blog/2015/01/27/rand-paul-reintroduces-bill-aimed-
at-cur)

President Obama appointed Loretta Lynch as AG, who has a proven track record
of using civil asset forfeiture to advance her career.
[http://www.cato.org/blog/loretta-lynchs-worrisome-answer-
civ...](http://www.cato.org/blog/loretta-lynchs-worrisome-answer-civil-asset-
forfeiture)

~~~
JustSomeNobody
It is very sad, but our Bill of Rights is getting eroded by horrible
legislation. Our founding fathers predicted this bad government behavior by
giving us the B.o.R. Now, we are just standing here watching it be slowly
taken from us.

Edit for clarity.

------
ccvannorman
Out of curiosity I looked up murder stats as well. Roughly 1000 were killed by
police in 2014 nationwide, whereas nationwide civilian murder toll reached
about 10,000. So at least police aren't killing more people than regular
people?

~~~
toomuchtodo
> So at least police aren't killing more people than regular people?

They're killing more people than terrorists though:

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/youre-nine-times-
like...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/08/youre-nine-times-likely-
killed-police-officer-terrorist.html)

[http://www.globalresearch.ca/increasing-police-brutality-
ame...](http://www.globalresearch.ca/increasing-police-brutality-americans-
killed-by-cops-now-outnumber-americans-killed-in-iraq-war/5361554)

[http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-
ki...](http://www.cato.org/blog/youre-eight-times-more-likely-be-killed-
police-officer-terrorist)

[http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/youre-55-times-
likely...](http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/03/youre-55-times-likely-
killed-police-officer-terrorist.html)

Yay?

~~~
Fezzik
That is primarily true because we are a heavily/overly militarized and
protected country. If it were easier to frequently fly planes in to large
buildings I think we can all agree religious extremists would be killing a
significantly larger number of people in the US. It is *lack of opportunity
that prevents this, not a passivity that is greater than that of police
officers.

~~~
toomuchtodo
How many people are waiting in a TSA checkpoint at busy times, unprotected?
And yet, we haven't seen those groups of people massacred.

~~~
dragonwriter
> How many people are waiting in a TSA checkpoint at busy times, unprotected?

None; even outside the "secured" areas, airports are one of the most heavily
patrolled places open to the public.

Obviously, that doesn't make attacks impossible, but characterizing that
locale as "unprotected" is unreasonable.

~~~
delecti
The security line is almost by definition pre-security, and often includes
dozens or hundreds of people.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The security line is almost by definition pre-security

The security screening line is (just) outside of a particular layer of
security; the area of the airport outside that layer, including the line, is
still one of the most heavily patrolled areas open to the public in the US, it
is not "unprotected".

~~~
delecti
Maybe you couldn't get to the screening line with a rifle strapped to your
back, but you almost certainly could with a bomb strapped to your chest under
your jacket.

~~~
mikeash
You could bring one hell of a big suitcase bomb. Weight limits would not
apply, and size limits only vaguely. Lug in one of those really big roller
suitcases filled with high explosives and nails, roll it right into the
security line, and... I'm on a list now.

~~~
TeMPOraL
If you want to be really douchy about such an attack, use liquid explosives in
1L soda bottles. Say that you forgot about the regulations and dutifully throw
them together into the bin...

(I'm probably on the list already anyway.)

------
rayiner
All burglaries are wrongful, but only some unspecified fraction of civil asset
forfeitures are wrongful. You need to multiply the first number by that
percentage before comparing the two numbers. The comparison in the article is
thus nonsense.

~~~
nraynaud
nope, because they could have been forfeited by a court anyways.

~~~
rayiner
Civil forfeiture requires a showing in front of a court.

~~~
fineman
Not actually. It merely requires a cop.

And the state has been known to kidnap your children if you try to dispute the
issue.

~~~
fineman
The issue though is that your money, car, etc, is gone instantly and you're on
the side of the road hitch-hiking home. No hearing, no evidence even.

The fact that a hearing is part of the process is largely irrelevant because
other parts of the system to conspire to keep victims from reaching the
hearing or getting justice.

------
DrScump
I wish the body of the article separated stats for _civil_ forfeiture vs.
_criminal_ forfeiture.

~~~
maxerickson
The source number isn't even clearly based on seizures in 2014. At least it's
linked:

[http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/crime-and-justice-
news/20...](http://www.thecrimereport.org/news/crime-and-justice-
news/2015-11-civil-asset-forfeiture-report)

That says that federal account balances from seizures totaled $4.5 billion in
2014. It also says that Madoff and Toyota each contributed more than $1
billion to those accounts.

edit to add: It seems likely that the seizure is only related to the Madoff
case, not that it came from Madoff directly, in another comment I linked a BBC
article saying the forfeiture came from JP Morgan.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Toyota? That's a seizure? In what sense? Are fines considered the same as
seizures?

~~~
maxerickson
Apparently for the purposes of this article.

I got that far and decided I wasn't going to spend any more time looking into
the claims as presented in the link and flagged it.

~~~
sambe
Bit off-topic but
[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
say flagging is for off-topic and spam, not low quality (they also explicitly
request not commenting to say you flagged something).

~~~
ars
> they also explicitly request not commenting to say you flagged something

They just if you comment nothing else, it's OK to mention it as an aside to a
more useful comment.

------
pns
Living as an American in Kenya give me a lot of perspective to what the
logical endpoint is if certain government practices get put on steroids, such
as this.

While in the United States it sounds alarmist to think of this all as a system
of organized, police-mandated shakedowns, that's very common here. In 4 out of
5 times I hear folks get pulled over by cops, the driver had to pay a bribe.
Police regularly go to businesses demanding regular payments else they shut
down the companies.

I wouldn't have give this a second thought before, but after living here, I
see what its like living under degraded institutions.

~~~
SixSigma
In India it is similar.

Also they (Indians) say "if you see a dead body don't call the police, you
will end up in prison for murder"

------
dredmorbius
Washington Post's Wonkblog has more on this with a graph of CA seizuires from
2001-2014. It's staggering (I looked it up doubting the Armstrong blog, ended
up verifying it):

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/10/repor...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/10/report-
in-lean-times-police-start-taking-a-lot-more-stuff-from-people/?hpid=hp_rhp-
more-top-stories_no-name%3Ahomepage%2Fstory)

------
Shivetya
from Cato, [http://www.policemisconduct.net/explainers/civil-asset-
forfe...](http://www.policemisconduct.net/explainers/civil-asset-forfeiture/)

and if you time, a detailed report which is 186 pages of PDF
[http://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/policing-for-
profit...](http://ij.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/policing-for-profit-2nd-
edition.pdf)

------
samstave
I would like to see these numbers by each and every precinct or branch.

There was a post some time back about some new building and equipment a
Florida PD built with their stolen money.

------
JulianMorrison
Police civil asset forfeitures are burglaries.

------
yourepowerless
How much more evidence do people need before we all readily conceed that
America is a police state?

Before you can change reality you must first understand the reality that
exists.

Police steal and murder without consequence. They are a gang of murderous
thugs protected by a corrupt court and legislative body.

~~~
Fezzik
I am not sure this article leads to that conclusion. Most of this money comes
from drug busts. You can argue about whether or not heavily addicting drugs
like cocaine should be legal, but that $12 billion was not seized from John
and Jane Doe for no reason. Is the rule misused? It sure seems like it is,
occasionally. Should we as a nation abolish it? Maybe. but most of the funds
are confiscated from drug dealers who would use the money... to sell more
drugs. And to buy tigers and mansions, of course, but also to distribute
drugs. Also, drug cartels have a penchant to murder a ton of people. Sometimes
20,000+ a year. Leaving the money with them seems like a poor choice.

Money seized in drug busts:
[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9149048...](http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91490480)

Drug cartels and homicide: [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-
affairs-defe...](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/foreign-affairs-
defense/drug-lord/the-staggering-death-toll-of-mexicos-drug-war/)

~~~
yourepowerless
Your equivocation of clearly immoral behavior is suggestive.

Is stealing wrong? Yes, yes it is. How many more decades of a failed war on
drugs policy do you need before you accept and argue for a change of course?

When bad laws create the incentive which results in 10,000s of murders it is
imperative to change those incentives, even the Mexican government is now
clamoring for change, but the war on drugs is too convenient for the status
quo and justifies all sorts of government empowerment.

But in the face of a murderous institution I'm happy we have some fellow
Willing to equivocate and defend senseless murder, torture, and theft, good
job dude.

~~~
Fezzik
Sorry if I came across that way, I really do not think it is that black and
white. At all. Nor do I think any person, police or not, is infallible. That
said, the US is emphatically NOT a police state. East Germany and the Soviet
Bloc were police states. North Korea is a police state. Applying that term to
asset forfeiture shows a tremendous ignorance of what it means. You might not
think so, but in an asset forfeiture case in the US you do, in fact, have
access to courts. Courts where primarily impartial judges sit, that have no
connection to the police force. Is the system perfect? Gosh no. But to say
21st century american police officers are like the Stasi is absurd, and seeing
people up-vote those sentiments on HN is sort of terrifying.

~~~
xiaoma
How can you afford legal representation if the police just seized your money
(or even house)?

~~~
DrScump
In a criminal case, you would get a Public Defender.

In a civil case, there are public-interest agencies who may be interested, or
with a strong case a skilled attorney could take your case on contingency.

~~~
wfo
So your answer is "You cannot, but you are free to beg for charity, the state
has decided you aren't allowed to hire an attorney with the time and skill
necessary to defend you so you won't be needing a trial, here is a public
defender who will happily help you agree to a plea deal since we've already
decided you are guilty, don't waste our time and money by asserting your
'rights'"

------
steffan
I think you mean _other_ burglaries.

~~~
a3n
Asset forfeiture is armed robbery, not burglary. Although it wouldn't surprise
me if the police do that too.

