More About Dirty Money at NPR
I meantioned that NPR was doing a series about the rampant abuse of forfieture laws by police. The four part series continues with this article about famous state trooper with a knack for turing the highways into an ATM.
The government and local agencies already have a handy tool undermine the rights of their citizens in the War on Drugs, but now you throw over a billion dollars of confiscated cash into the equation? You will be left just a group of gangster stealling money from another group of gansters, only one of those criminal gangs happens to have a badge.
The final story in the series show us that in some juridicitons this is already the case and even same senior law enforcement officials are starting to raise an eyebrow.
I have studied conditions in other countries too much to not realize that these situations can spiral out of control. Individual departments out of control because legislators can not exercise fundamental controls over thier budget. Law enforcement agencies should always be strapped for cash: It makes them actually have to prioritize what "threats" are worth thier resources.
The government and local agencies already have a handy tool undermine the rights of their citizens in the War on Drugs, but now you throw over a billion dollars of confiscated cash into the equation? You will be left just a group of gangster stealling money from another group of gansters, only one of those criminal gangs happens to have a badge.
The final story in the series show us that in some juridicitons this is already the case and even same senior law enforcement officials are starting to raise an eyebrow.
I have studied conditions in other countries too much to not realize that these situations can spiral out of control. Individual departments out of control because legislators can not exercise fundamental controls over thier budget. Law enforcement agencies should always be strapped for cash: It makes them actually have to prioritize what "threats" are worth thier resources.