THE LAST WORD 07-28-15

THE LAST WORD

Recent audits in Oklahoma have shown that law enforcement officials are seizing money and property from people who haven’t been charged with a crime. Even worse, they’re using it to live rent-free or pay off student loans. If this shocks you, it shouldn’t. The practice, called civil asset forfeiture, is actually incredibly common, and it creates an incentive for police to take people’s things without true cause. Its use has steadily increased since Congress approved the use of seized assets to fund police operations in 1984. By 2008, the Justice Department’s Assets Forfeiture Fund, which collects and redistributes assets in states where cops can’t keep them, had accumulated $1 billion. New Mexico is one of the only states that requires seized assets to go to the state’s general fund, and it’s high time other states adopt similar methods to crack down on corruption.