This should piss everyone off

[grimmreaper3]

Seriously, if you're not pissed off by this, I believe we have found the new Dalai Lama.

[Vegasdogg]

And people wonder why I am against big government. This case is about bigger govt holding all the cards, asking for ridiculous documents and tax papers, and all the guy can do is hire a lawyer. The law in on the books for a reason, but they need to give the guy his vehicle back. Sorry part of this all is most of the govt workers agree, but the red tape prevents this from happening.

And seizing a citizen’s assets without proving him guilty of anything is nakedly unjust.

This is a misleading statement. If the case has not been heard yet, the citizen's guilt or innocence is irrelevant.

If the police want more co-operation from the civilians they serve, they need to keep their guns holstered more of the time, and their hands out of other people’s pockets.

Ah yes, the obligatory "be nice and we'll cooperate with you" statement. Pulling out guns and fining citizens is not the reason they don't cooperate. Death threats and murder by the criminals does that.

Overall I understand the plight of Mr Ali and think this case is about the govt having all the control and basically hoping he goes away. But to turn this into a "Cops do it for the cash so point the finger at the department" is BS and a stretch.

Do I think cops pull people over to line the budget with cash? No, and the DA will see to that. Do I think 10% of the cops ruin it for the other 90%? Yes.

But by and large the article has an agenda and I didn't buy into it.

[grimmreaper3]

Whaa? This is not the first instance of this, and there are MOUNDS of evidence to show that the system is widely abused.

http://www.ij.org/images/pdf_folder/...uretoemail.pdf

Not putting that in the Web tags, since it's a 123-page PDF, but here are some snippets (the format's a bit wonky):

It should also not be surprising that, given
the structures and incentives of civil forfeiture
law, a substantial number of law enforcement
agencies are now dependent on civil forfeiture
proceeds and view civil forfeiture as a necessary
source of
income. Williams,
Holcomb
and Kovandzic
point to a survey
of nearly 800 law
enforcement executives,
in which
nearly 40 percent
of police agencies reported that civil forfeiture
proceeds were a necessary budget supplement.
And they note that this dependency
is also present at the federal level, where the
Department of Justice in the past has urged its
lawyers to increase their civil forfeiture efforts
so as to meet the Department’s annual budget
targets.

The Institute for Justice collected data
on forfeiture proceeds and budget data from
a random sample of 52 law enforcement
agencies in Texas. We found that forfeiture
proceeds represent an average of more than
14 percent of law enforcement budgets—a
sizable share of an agency’s budget. Indeed,
we found that many law enforcement agencies
were counting on this revenue by including it
in their budget estimates.

But the biggest forfeiture money-makers in Texas are even more reliant on forfeited funds:
The top 10 forfeiture earners take in, on average, about 37 percent of their budgets in forfeiture
funds. (To calculate that percentage, we removed one agency, the 76th District Attorney in Camp
County, from the top 10 because its forfeiture proceeds represented an astonishing 1,344 percent
of its budget, and that skewed the average.)

Criminologist John Worrall surveyed 770
police managers and executives and found that
almost 40 percent of respondents agreed or
strongly agreed with the statement that civil
forfeiture is “necessary as a budget supplement.”

Surely it's being used to bust high-level operatives, then?

Available data also appear to contradict a
key argument from forfeiture advocates. Advocates
continually highlight how forfeiture is used
to pursue high-level targets and major criminal
organizations.86 Table 9 suggests that, at least
at the state level, this is not necessarily the case.
One-half of all Virginia currency forfeitures
were for less than $614 to $1,288, depending on
the year under examination.
Thus, rather than high-level targets and criminal
organizations, state and local law enforcement
frequently seize and forfeit relatively small amounts
of currency that would more likely be held by lowlevel
offenders or ordinary individuals.

Guess not.

This is just big-picture stuff. I fail to see how one could claim to be small-government and support this.

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by grimmreaper3

I fail to see how one could claim to be small-government and support this.

I am not in favor of the govt taking things away from lawful citizens, not am I in favor of balancing your budgets based on shit you can confiscate. But it is done and so be it, the shit they confiscate pays for the police "stuff" tax free. Do I feel bad for the idiots who come in contact with the police and have their shit taken? No. Do I think this particular article is slanted and beating an agenda? Yes. Do I blame the police for stuffing their budgets with bad people's goods? Nope.

But the article scares you into believing that lawful citizens have their stuff taken regularly, and that lawful citizens are stuffing the budgets of the police.

And that is what I don't buy.

You fuck up and get caught and have your shit taken? Too bad. Life is tougher when your stupid. Plenty of poor people don't get involved with the police.

[grimmreaper3]

Originally Posted by Vegasdogg

Do I blame the police for stuffing their budgets with bad people's goods? Nope.

Goddammit. Nevermind.

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by grimmreaper3

Goddammit. Nevermind.

This is your topic so spit it out.

Are you pissed Police confiscate money/goods from bad people?
Are you pissed these people are sometimes poor?
Are you pissed criminals are mostly poor?
Should cops not take the goods and put them to public use?
Is it bad that they budget for this stuff?
Are there too many dollar signs among government entities?

What?

This is a great discussion. Do I really need to give you props for an article I think is slanted, and does that cause you to bow out of a good discussion? Seriously thank you for posting the article but it does have an agenda.

Want to debate this man to man, great. I will do so. But I am sure if it is about research and combing te WEB for articles to copy and paste, Calfox is more your style.

[Inspecta]

Veg, I think you're over simplifying your classification of "bad people"

What makes a person bad? Clearly the guy in the article had no run in with the cops other than he sold his truck to a drunk driver. Yet he's paying the price for it.

To me this is a conflict of interest and reminds me of the tax collectors of 1st century Palestine where they would not only collect the taxes, but create new shit to tax, or penalize regular folks so the local government could have more funds that would not be funneled back to Rome.

If somebody is a straight up criminal, like the high level ones the article mentioned, then I have no problem with their stuff being confiscated. However, I'd like to see all funds confiscated go to the local school system, or some other worthy branch of government, not back to the dept who's doing the confiscating. If you take any personal gain out of the equation then you're back to only confiscating what rightfully should be. Another solution to perhaps limit the confiscations to only felony offenses.


And Grimm, take it easy fella, if you thought posting some hard data to Vegas was going to get him to change his mind then you haven't been around here long enough. I love the way you debate, no need to throw your hands up this early in the fray. Just take a step back and look at it from another angle.

[ProphetKing]

It's hard to see a society that exists without big government or big business.

[Vegasdogg]

The article is spinning and that is what I take issue with. So Texas collects a lot of revenue this way? Well yeah, that could be due to the fact that a lot of drugs come North, and money goes South. The article talks about %'s of budgets filled with forfeiture, but then as an explanation of high-level vs low-level targets it uses ----- Virginia? Huh? Not New York, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Florida.....no it uses as its source research the State of Virginia.

There is a debate here, but using info strictly from this article slants the debate, and IMO is a poor beginning. The law allows confiscated money and goods to be used in the budget. Do I agree with this? I don't think on its face I do, but I need more facts, I need more info, I need someone smarter than me to play devils advocate. But this article did not seem objective at all and that is what I took issue with.

[Vegasdogg]

Originally Posted by Inspecta

What makes a person bad? Clearly the guy in the article had no run in with the cops other than he sold his truck to a drunk driver. Yet he's paying the price for it.

That is not what the article is about, that just sets up the reader to have sympathy for the writer's cause. Of course people think it is utter bullshit that Mr Ali doesn't have his truck, and I admitted as much in my first post. It is part and parcel of government, large or small. That wasn't really what this was about to be honest.

How many times does this happen to innocent people? 10%? 8%? 5%? 20%? 1 person is too many and that is not a question with probably 100% of sane people. But as I said that story set up the reader, nothing more.

[Inspecta]

Originally Posted by Vegasdogg

The article is spinning and that is what I take issue with. .

That's fine, but don't discredit the situation because you have an issue with how said issue was presented to you.

What do you think is the motivation for the spin?

Guy got a grudge against cops cause one banged his wife?

Doesn't like cops cause he got a DUI?

Or perhaps his emotions are coming through the article because he sees this as a pretty big injustice in our country?


If it's the first two then you have him dead to rights, however if it's the third then the only thing you can call him guilty of is being passionate about civil rights.

[Vegasdogg]

I love the Economist. It is a great publication. Outstanding in fact, one I am trying to read more.

What is his motivation? To write a story and find facts to back up his story. This isn't a book where the guy has years to look at all of the information. So it is onesided and incomplete, IMO.

Are we saying that people who break the law - certain laws - should not have their shit taken? Here in Vegas you do not give up your vehicle after 3 DUI's, but some states you do. Well, I am sorry that poor people suffer more for this kind of thing, and I am certain there are ways of getting your property back, but you're accountable.

Do I think departments should budget for this kind of stuff? No, but then again I don't have all the facts. I have problems debating a subject when there are limited facts or one sided facts. If people would start from there we'd be better off. But to say "this pissed me off" without having all the facts seems premature. Of course the way the story is written it would piss me off, too.