Essay On Civil Asset Forfeiture

553 Words2 Pages

Police officers have enough power as it is and with civil asset forfeiture, they are given even more power. They are allowed to take our homes, our money, and our prized possessions if they have proof beyond a reasonable doubt that it’s involved in a crime. Civil asset forfeitures also vary by state. Most people don’t even go after the police in court for the stuff that they seize from them due to the process they have to go through. This cases tend to appear as United States of America v. 120,000 dollars in currency. Civil asset forfeiture is something that needs to be put to a stop because of the little limit to what can be done with the money and some of the people not being directly affected by it. Police officers are able to do whatever they want with money or other items they confiscate. It has been proven that some of the money taken in the United States has been used for pointless items that have nothing to do with better the police station. Williams states,“The state and federal laws illustrated above allow law enforcement much leeway in the use of forfeited funds, and, coupled with the lowered due process protections in civil forfeitures, it is no surprise that law enforcement agencies engage in this practice” (Williams 327). Citizens feel that it should not be this way …show more content…

Ronald Helm discusses the studies that are done about the profit- based incentives that come from civil asset forfeiture cases. Helm asserts, “Benson et al . (1995) examine the policy and bureaucratic underpinnings of asset forfeiture by analysing forfeiture case processing in several Florida police agencies. They conclude that the effects of the Comprehensive Crime Act of 1984, particularly those sections pertaining to asset forfeiture, provided police agencies with incentives to pursue forfeiture cases and that doing so has resulted in expanded budgetary discretion” (Helm

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