Police Budgets funded by drug $
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- threadpost
http://www.npr.org/templates/sto…
this is bullshit. Focusing law enforcement efforts to pad their budgets. Sounds like a bunch of (maybe) high school educated, power tripping, cops being put in charge of huge sums of money with zero financial training or any accountability or oversight.
Leaving it up to these individual sheriffs to honestly and accurately report and allocate 80% of this seized money, totaling millions of dollars.
Just how much of that cash is going into their individual pockets?
- mg330
I heard that story this morning as I left for work.
Frankly, I don't even think the segment mentioned anything about how much they might take for themselves, but since you mention it that is a great point. Who knows really?
- bliznutty0
i guess crime does pay.
in fact so much that we encourage all of you to smuggle drugs through our great state.
- TheBlueOne0
This has been going on for thirty years, you just getting upset about it now? Do some research into the RICO statutes and how law enforcement corrupted them from day one...the "War on Drugs" is every bit a war of profit fear and suppression as anything that's going on anywhere else..
- threadpost0
you're damn right I'm getting upset about it now. read the article, in the last 3 years, police budgets have more than tripled by virtue of taking this money directly from drug dealer straight to the car dealer. They're taking unprecedented amounts of new money, totally unaccounted for and essentially coming up with shopping lists for cool toys (the new sniper rifles for example, there was never a need for these before, only that homeland security has now scared us into believing.)
I don't have a problem with law enforcement taking their piece of the pie here, certainly there is a lot of money to go around. But don't you think the drug problem could be better served if more of this money went toward education, recovery programs, social outreach etc, than just directly into some jock cops bank account?
And thanks to NPR for actually having the balls to call attention to this issue. Too many pussy news orgs would be happy to let this slide for fear of coming off as "freedom haters" or whatever other 20 second soundbyte the Bush admin can come up with for questioning any authority.- NPR to have the balls? Dude, I took an entire class on this in college in 1989...old news...TheBlueOne
- Sorry..it is horrible and you are right to get outraged, just saying it's been part of the system for a long time nowTheBlueOne
- Here's the same conclusion from over ten years ago:
http://www.spaef.com…TheBlueOne
- internate0
Keep in mind, that's American's money.
- jandiroo0
"Then they destroy the cocaine"
haha...yes
- TheBlueOne0
By the way, this was another great "fuck you" to America brought to you by Reagan. It was his 1986 Anti-Drug Abuse Act that added property forfeiture law.
Another Republican scheme to take their cut off the top.
- TheBlueOne0
- cause public servants need the bling to protect and serve...TheBlueOne
- ..I await the hummer garbage trucks and school buses...oh nevermind...TheBlueOne
- hedge0
You're blaming Reagan for this? Wow.
- Damn right skippy.TheBlueOne
- um yeah genius. dont forget the different strokes episode where nancy told arnold to say no. war on drugs!threadpost
- http://www.deamuseum…TheBlueOne
- threadpost0
uh yeah, we all went to college, and there we all learned there are fucked up things going on with the war on drugs.
I encourage you to actually listen to the program, it is a 5 part piece. The point of the story is to illustrate just how much this program has changed and just how out of control it has gotten.
Never before just now have you had police departments entire budgets being funded by what they can pillage from the people they arrest.
As I said, let some of that dough go to the cops, but get the fucking priorities straight and spend the money where it actually would make an ounce of fucking difference in the drug problem. (an ounce of drug problem? That sounds more like a drug solution to me ;)
- TheBlueOne0
"Never before just now have you had police departments entire budgets being funded by what they can pillage from the people they arrest."
Try again. Been going on for a quite a while. I watched the program, it is excellent reportage. But it's nothing new in term of what's been going on, perhaps an acceleration in well-established trends.
- how do you watch a radio program?threadpost
- Cites entire budget funding in 1996...
http://papers.ssrn.c…TheBlueOne
- threadpost0
blue one, Im not battling you, clearly we're on the same side of this issue. But I'm telling you, what is going on now is different. And yeah, I was outraged then, and even more outraged now.
- Agreed, both on same side, just saying that it's been a part of the system a lot longer. It was a feature, not a bug of the Reagan-era laws.TheBlueOne
- ..Reagan era-laws. The cops got hooked on the $ and can't ge toff the good shit now.TheBlueOne
- TheBlueOne0
Sorry threadpost I confused the NPR show with the one on Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/fr…
That ONE I watched...
- ********0
nice trinidad police car.
- threadpost0
all that d.a.r.e. bullshit have always driven around in flashy cars said to have been seized from drug dealers. Ok whatever, if that PR stunt makes mr and mrs johnson from cleveland feel slightly better about how funds get allocated, then fine. though everyone knows dare is and was a fucking joke.
But focking'ell, their entire paradigm has shifted. these pigs dont want to bust the drugs coming in, but wait for the cash to go back out to mexico before busting them.
You cant buy sweet new lazer guns and escalades with bricks of heroin, but you can with the cash seized from the sale of said heroin.
- threadpost0
here is the All Things Considered story which just aired:
http://www.npr.org/templates/sto…they clearly lay out the abuses in this law since the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000, or CAFRA.
Law enforcement can confiscate any money if they even suspect it could possibly be traced to drug money, this is called a civil suit. It is different than those laws before, where they could always take money or property in a criminal suit.
Basically they can take it, you either sign a waiver saying you dont want to persue it, or you get arrested and they take you to jail.
Where often the cost of an attorney (the only person who can make the argument before a judge for you) will cost more than what was confiscated.
These pigs are just fishing for cash. This is all new, and complete bullshit.
- ********0
they could use it for harm reduction and rehabilitation programs...but that'd be bad for business i guess
- threadpost0
Most definitely bad for business. evil fucks wait for the drugs to get sold on the streets of the US then grab the cash as it goes back out.
"Civil forfeiture is different from criminal forfeiture. In criminal forfeiture, the taking of property is usually carried out after the owner is convicted of a crime. In civil forfeiture, the government seizes the property — in this case, the currency — without ever charging the person with a crime. The government must show by a preponderance of the evidence that the money is dirty; then it's up to the owner to prove that his cash is clean." the burden is on you to prove your money isnt drug money. ...This is all new Blue One
- bliznutty0
this is an old CIA trick:
first do a bunch of dirty shit,
then take the dirty money,
last use the dirty money to fund more dirty shit
