How does law enforcement finance operations? Increasingly, police departments across the country pay for their activities, equipment and supplies by seizing the assets of people who have never committed a crime. It’s a process called civil forfeiture, and it’s at best, controversial. At worst, it provides direct monetary incentive for states and the federal government to steal property from innocent citizens. Gives a whole new meaning to Bastiat’s “legal plunder.”

Radley Balko explains how civil forfeiture perverts the “protect and serve” motto by introducing a profit motive: Continue reading →