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> and certainly not wanting to argue in favor of civil asset forfeiture, which is obviously abused nationwide I feel like even entertaining these conversations

> and certainly not wanting to argue in favor of civil asset forfeiture, which is obviously abused nationwide I feel like even entertaining these conversations about what crime the individual may have been contemplating allows the conversation to be derailed. If the individual had been caught in the act of handing over cash for illegal drugs, it would still be an outrageous corruption for the police to simply seize that cash and use it for their own purposes. It’s obviously a huge conflict of interest, and we should all be arguing for banning the practice regardless of the circumstances.

tptacek 3y ago
I'm not sure I follow. If he'd actually been caught trafficking, what would the conflict of interest be?
- lolinder 3y ago
  It creates many perverse incentives for law enforcement. Even if you require a conviction before CAF can be applied, it means that police funding is directly tied to number of convictions instead of the health of the community, and in particular ties funding to convictions in cases where large amounts of money are involved. This disincentivizes preventatory measures of any sort (because preventing crime brings no profit in the short term and decreases profit in the long term), and it means that rather than focusing on crime that has a substantial impact on the health of the community police officers are incentivized to focus on crimes that are likely to net a large amount of cash, which is not a great predictor for the actual impact on society.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    If he'd actually been caught trafficking, he'd have been guilty of the offense charged. I don't understand the conflict. It sounds like maybe you more broadly oppose cannabis prohibition in Nebraska? Most people here do!
    - pintxo 3y ago
      Another way to see why this is a problem: Let’s assume the police has only time to investigate 1 case. But there are two currently to be handled. One is a high profile drug dealer presumably flowing in cash, the other one is a homeless potential murderer. Which case will the police solve, given that they know they will be able to keep half the cash from the dealer, but there won’t be anything to size from the homeless?
    - lolinder 3y ago
      No, I'm not taking a stance on drugs. I'm not saying him losing $18k as a fine would be a problem. I'm saying that the police requisitioning his $18k and that money going towards the department budget creates perverse incentives for the police. If that money went to funding schools the problem would be much less severe. But when the head of the police department gets CAF money added to the top line of his budget, it will shape the way he directs his force, and the incentives it gives him are wrong.
      - tptacek 3y ago
        (a) The money does go to funding schools (roughly half of it). (b) I still don't understand the conflict you're talking about. In your hypothetical, this money is exactly what civil asset forfeiture was designed to capture: the proceeds and instrumentalities of a crime. If you want to argue that he wasn't guilty of any crime, and therefore the money should have been returned, that makes perfect sense! But the hypo you've provided here doesn't make sense.
        dragonwriter 3y ago
        > this money is exactly what civil asset forfeiture was designed to capture: the proceeds and instrumentalities of a crime. No, you've confused criminal asset forfeiture (which exists for that purpose, and hinges on an actual conviction of an actual crime) with civil asset forfeiture (a product of admiralty law meant, in theory to make ship owners exert tighter control of their crews without extending criminal liability to them for the crews crimes, by making ships themselves forfeit for those crimes even though crews weren’t owners, that mostly hung around as a disused appendage in American law until it got seized on as an end run around criminal process in Prohibition, and later exploded in the War on Drugs.)
- yowzadave 3y ago
  Police funding should not scale with the number of arrests they make—otherwise they have a direct interest in making more arrests, which leads to the corruption described in TFA. I'm fine with the money being seized by the state in the above scenario, but only after conviction, and never for direct use by the police.
  - tptacek 3y ago
    I mean, I mostly agree with this, though I agree more with the first half (about police funding) than about the second half (about the article describing corruption, which it mostly doesn't). I think a lot of the issue here is a lack of coherency in the threads about inchoate crimes.

tptacek 3y ago

I'm not sure I follow. If he'd actually been caught trafficking, what would the conflict of interest be?

lolinder 3y ago
It creates many perverse incentives for law enforcement. Even if you require a conviction before CAF can be applied, it means that police funding is directly tied to number of convictions instead of the health of the community, and in particular ties funding to convictions in cases where large amounts of money are involved. This disincentivizes preventatory measures of any sort (because preventing crime brings no profit in the short term and decreases profit in the long term), and it means that rather than focusing on crime that has a substantial impact on the health of the community police officers are incentivized to focus on crimes that are likely to net a large amount of cash, which is not a great predictor for the actual impact on society.
- tptacek 3y ago
  If he'd actually been caught trafficking, he'd have been guilty of the offense charged. I don't understand the conflict. It sounds like maybe you more broadly oppose cannabis prohibition in Nebraska? Most people here do!
  - pintxo 3y ago
    Another way to see why this is a problem: Let’s assume the police has only time to investigate 1 case. But there are two currently to be handled. One is a high profile drug dealer presumably flowing in cash, the other one is a homeless potential murderer. Which case will the police solve, given that they know they will be able to keep half the cash from the dealer, but there won’t be anything to size from the homeless?
  - lolinder 3y ago
    No, I'm not taking a stance on drugs. I'm not saying him losing $18k as a fine would be a problem. I'm saying that the police requisitioning his $18k and that money going towards the department budget creates perverse incentives for the police. If that money went to funding schools the problem would be much less severe. But when the head of the police department gets CAF money added to the top line of his budget, it will shape the way he directs his force, and the incentives it gives him are wrong.
    - tptacek 3y ago
      (a) The money does go to funding schools (roughly half of it). (b) I still don't understand the conflict you're talking about. In your hypothetical, this money is exactly what civil asset forfeiture was designed to capture: the proceeds and instrumentalities of a crime. If you want to argue that he wasn't guilty of any crime, and therefore the money should have been returned, that makes perfect sense! But the hypo you've provided here doesn't make sense.
      - dragonwriter 3y ago
        > this money is exactly what civil asset forfeiture was designed to capture: the proceeds and instrumentalities of a crime. No, you've confused criminal asset forfeiture (which exists for that purpose, and hinges on an actual conviction of an actual crime) with civil asset forfeiture (a product of admiralty law meant, in theory to make ship owners exert tighter control of their crews without extending criminal liability to them for the crews crimes, by making ships themselves forfeit for those crimes even though crews weren’t owners, that mostly hung around as a disused appendage in American law until it got seized on as an end run around criminal process in Prohibition, and later exploded in the War on Drugs.)
yowzadave 3y ago
Police funding should not scale with the number of arrests they make—otherwise they have a direct interest in making more arrests, which leads to the corruption described in TFA. I'm fine with the money being seized by the state in the above scenario, but only after conviction, and never for direct use by the police.
- tptacek 3y ago
  I mean, I mostly agree with this, though I agree more with the first half (about police funding) than about the second half (about the article describing corruption, which it mostly doesn't). I think a lot of the issue here is a lack of coherency in the threads about inchoate crimes.