Based on laws that originated from the War on Drugs in the 1980s, police departments around the country are able to seize a person’s cash and property without charging them with a crime.
Civil forfeiture laws were created as a tool to cripple suspected criminals and drug rings, but police departments nationwide have been using this cash and property to fund their operations or even pay policemen directly.
The problem, is that in the vast majority of assets seizures, the individual is not charged with a crime. And once their cash and property are seized, getting it back is a prohibitively lengthy and expensive process.
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How Police Departments Use Civil Forfeiture to Collect Billions ─ VICE
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