America’s civil asset forfeiture laws, another product of law enforcement’s failed war on drugs, originally  designed to deprive suspected drug dealers of the spoils of their illicit trade — houses, cars, boats — now regularly deprive people unconnected to the war on drugs of their property, without due process of law and in violation of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. In such cases property owners have no right to an attorney to defend themselves, which means that they must either pay for a lawyer or contest the seizure themselves in court. The local government holds all the cards, has a financial incentive to play them to the hilt, and, not surprisingly, corruption follows.

Civil asset forfeiture has mutated into what’s now called “for-profit policing”, where citizens who are suspected of driving drunk or soliciting prostitutes are arrested. Sometimes they have cash taken from them on suspicion of low-level drug dealing; in others Federal and state law enforcement keep property seized or sell it and retain a portion of the revenue generated. Some of this, in turn, can be re-purposed and distributed as bonuses in police and other law enforcement departments. 

The ACLU of Pennsylvania issued a report, Guilty Property, documenting how the Philadelphia Police Department and district attorney’s office abused state civil asset forfeiture by taking at least $1 million from innocent people within the city limits. Approximately 70% of the time, those people were black, even though the city’s population is almost evenly divided between whites and African-Americans.(Tomgram)

In parts of the United States the police seem to be a law unto themselves, abusing their position, falsely impounding and then selling goods with impunity, or shooting innocent people. It is becoming rare to hear of a police officer who is successfully prosecuted for exceeding his authority or killing or injuring a suspect. This is a political situation, with the, mostly middle-aged, people stoutly defending the police come what may, persuaded as they are that there is a huge crime wave. There places in the country which are riven with drugs and murder. But there is no national crime wave. Actually, crime in general is down, but politicians and other fearmongers stoke up the fear.