Report Shows Kansas Law Enforcement Seized $21 Million From People, Most Of Whom Were Never Charged With Crimes
from the actually-fighting-crime-just-isn't-profitable dept
A new report on asset forfeiture arrives at the same conclusions every other report on the subject has: forfeiture makes money for cops, does almost nothing to stop illegal activity, and rarely, if ever, results in criminal convictions. (via CJ Ciaramella at Reason)
The new report [PDF], put together by the Americans for Prosperity Foundation (AFPF), takes a look at the forfeiture racket in Kansas. Fortunately, a new law mandates more detailed reporting on forfeitures, meaning the AFPF actually had some data to work with.
Not that it’s necessarily comprehensive or accurate data. Law enforcement agencies have way more enthusiasm for inconsistently enforcing laws than they do for complying with them. A deep dive into the data performed by a Kansas news outlet found the reports delivered by agencies was incomplete, inaccurate, and outdated. It also discovered the overseer of this mandate — the Kansas Bureau of Investigation — didn’t seem to care that the information it was being given was inaccurate or incomplete.
Sometimes you just have to work with what you have, which is what the Foundation has done. What already looks pretty bad might be even worse than it appears. What it does show is it’s steady work for the state’s cops, even if it’s not really the sort of work that actually delivers results to anyone but the law enforcement agencies profiting from seizures.
The report points out the $21 million collected over the last two years is the equivalent of walking off with $13,000 of other people’s property every day. But that $13k/day takes a few hours to add up. To reduce the likelihood of losing what they’ve seized, most forfeitures involve amounts that are too small to result in serious legal challenges.
In many cases, the cost of recovering the property is greater than the value of the property seized. The Institute for Justice estimates the average cost to hire an attorney to fight a simple state forfeiture case is $3,000. Half of all seizures in the KASFR database have a value of $3,100 or less. Most people whose property has been seized by Kansas law enforcement are better off forfeiting what was taken.
This is why Kansas law enforcement agencies have been able to hold onto 91% of the property they’ve seized. And they’ve done so while securing a conviction in less than a quarter of all forfeiture cases. The small percentage who’ve managed to get their property back have engaged in protracted legal battles and endured law enforcement stonewalling. The average time from seizure to return of property in Kansas is 419 days.
Sure, there are some exceptions to these rules. Occasionally, cops make a really big bust.
Last year, a Kansas county sheriff ’s office worked with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) to seize $165,000 from an armored vehicle.
The van was transporting the proceeds from legal medical marijuana sales made in Missouri to Colorado. The DEA surveilled the vehicle as it retrieved cash from legally operating dispensaries, then alerted a Kansas sheriff ’s deputy when the van re-entered Kansas. The sheriff ’s deputy stopped the vehicle and seized the cash without charging the driver with a crime or even issuing a traffic citation.
Sounds impressive. It isn’t. The DOJ has already returned $1.2 million seized from this same cash transport company by California law enforcement. The company, Empyreal, is still suing Kansas law enforcement for the DEA-aided seizure detailed above. How does seizing money from a company transporting legally-obtained cash help fight the Drug War? It doesn’t. And no one in Kansas law enforcement or the DEA seems to care.
As long as it remains profitable, Kansas law enforcement will continue to participate in this somehow-lawful scam. But at least the new reporting mandates will give us an idea how much of mockery of justice it has become in that state.
Filed Under: civil asset forfeiture, kansas, legalized theft
Comments on “Report Shows Kansas Law Enforcement Seized $21 Million From People, Most Of Whom Were Never Charged With Crimes”
Police steal money.
That makes the money involved in a crime.
Therefore, the police should keep the money as evidence.
Aaand, Kansas police say, “We’re happy to return your money. We’ll charge you with a crime if you do. We don’t care if we’re just making it up. Make our day!”
To be fair:
Criminal asset forfeiture is the consequence of a criminal conviction. Civil asset forfeiture is based on the (humongously problematic) predicate that securing a conviction for mostly drug-related activities may be infeasible.
So the main manner in which forfeiture can result in criminal conviction is if you can prove the police acted criminally, and that’s sort of a high bar.
Presumably what you mean is that asset forfeiture rarely is associated with a criminal conviction.
Re:
Supposedly, to perform civil asset forfeiture, the government has to prove the money was the proceeds of a crime. Therefore, they have proven a crime occurred, and that the asset that was seized is the proceeds of a crime. If they can establish that an asset was the proceeds of a crime, but not establish the criminal behavior of the possessor of that asset, Id guess the connection between the asset and the crime isnt as strong as the police claim.
This is why there should be a law that people get their stuff back with generous compensation if the charges from which the seizure arose don’t lead to any conviction. Watch the rate of ‘forfeitures’ drop off a cliff if such a law were to be passed. 🙂
No report, no legal seizure.
They shouldn’t be allowed to try and fix the problem afterwards & courts should be returning cash with interest from those who were extorted.
They can’t even follow the most basic rules about highway robbery that would give them cover, fsck em.
Perhaps blowing a hole in the budgets might raise more questions in the minds of Kansas voters about is this program what they were told it would be or if its just allowing the cops to rob people.
But until it happens to them many of those voters appear to enjoy being ignorant of reality.
Government Slaves
You have to ask yourselves why the nation that is the self-proclaimed champion of freedom in the world has a law as diabolical and evil as CAF.
You have to ask yourself if voting really matters. Why hasn’t there been even one member of congress that has shouted from capital hill to repeal this evil law? Not any, not one. The mere fact that Civil Asset Forfeiture laws exist is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that YOU ARE A GOVERNMENT SLAVE.
Re:
You clearly don’t know the meaning of the word “slave”.
The alledged war on drugs
Is merely a money grab and literal road piracy by those who dont have to protect and serve….
Re:
The alleged war on drugs is merely a money grab and literal road piracy by those who don’t want to protect and serve…
FTFY. 😉
Civil Forfeiture
That is how it works with asset forfeiture laws.
Currency is going by wayside so I don’t know what the Government will do to replace that source of revenue.
Re:
Assets are more than currency. On top of reports cops can now seize the value from gift cards and pre-paid debit cards heavily used by those locked out of the banking industry, cars, phones, tablets, and other high end electronics are expensive and are all used by drug dealers.