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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsHolder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with local, state police
http://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/holder-ends-seized-asset-sharing-process-that-split-billions-with-local-state-police/2015/01/16/0e7ca058-99d4-11e4-bcfb-059ec7a93ddc_story.html?wpisrc=nl_evening&wpmm=1By Robert O'Harrow Jr., Sari Horwitz and Steven Rich January 16 at 2:15 PM
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property without warrants or criminal charges.
Holders action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.
The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and then have them adopted by federal agencies, which share in the proceeds. It allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep up to 80 percent of the proceeds of adopted seizures, with the rest going to federal agencies.
With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons, Holder said in a statement.
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Holder limits seized-asset sharing process that split billions with local, state police (Original Post)
G_j
Jan 2015
OP
This is really big, good news. This will put the kibosh on "policing for profit."
Comrade Grumpy
Jan 2015
#1
Comrade Grumpy
(13,184 posts)1. This is really big, good news. This will put the kibosh on "policing for profit."
Holder deserves big kudos for this.
It doesn't end civil asset forfeiture--many states have state forfeiture laws--but it removes a perverse incentive from state and local cops to try to bust people just to get their money. The states typically designate that seized funds go to the general fund or maybe the education fund. What the Equitable Sharing program, which Holder just basically ended, did was give cops a means of circumventing state laws and keeping most of the money for themselves.
G_j
(40,372 posts)3. I agree
it's a huge deal!
ND-Dem
(4,571 posts)2. "since the seizures began three decades ago" THIRTY YEARS OF THIS SHIT
kelliekat44
(7,759 posts)4. Not to mention the money and materials that many cops stole for themselves and did not report. nt