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Just to provide a contrary (or tempering?) opinion about the broader context -- Civil asset forfeiture seems to be loved so much on Reddit as some kind of evil

Just to provide a contrary (or tempering?) opinion about the broader context -- Civil asset forfeiture seems to be loved so much on Reddit as some kind of evil boogeyman that's coming for each of us, by corrupt police forces stopping you just when you happen to carry cash around from selling your car, or things like that. It's talked about as if people were getting struck by lighting or bitten by sharks every minute in the US. But the actual cases of this tool/legal mechanism being used are incredibly rare. The paper linked doesn't even go into any stats on how often this happens. It talks about this in isolation as a legal oddity to be fixed. And, sure, it may be worthy of fixing. But in the popular understanding (admittedly, a specialized, weird-threats-in-our-country understanding) this remains a topic that, like many other things, has harsh and extreme or unfair sounding impacts on people but is actually extremely rare. But it grabs headlines among a certain class of internet news readers. You're statistically not going to face this in reality in your lifetime.

batch12 3y ago
I hate ragebait and fear mongering (fearbait?) too. Playing devil's advocate, how do you get enough people to care without the manipulation?
woodruffw 3y ago
From a quick look online: federal CAF has gone from ~$100m/year in the 1980s to ~$4B/year by the mid-2010s. It’s hard to find more recent numbers that don’t combine federal and state forfeiture, but the general trendline is positive. That alone makes it a reasonable target of public interest, especially against the backdrop of larger civil liberty changes in the US. (Besides, “it won’t happen to you” is not a good argument. It’s very unlikely that a cop is going to shoot me for looking suspicious, but I have a civic interest in other people not being victimized.)
- aqme28 3y ago
  $4B/year is more than all the jewelry and precious metals stolen each year[1]. Should we not care about jewel thieves? [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252440/property-stolen-and-recovered-in-the-us-by-type-and-value/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/252440/property-stolen-a...
- supernova87a 3y ago
  But that's just the $ value. Has the incidence of innocent people been growing with that number?
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    Assuming it's covariant with per-seizure asset size and overall false prosecution rate, yes. To believe otherwise, you'd need to believe that the U.S. population has either grown 50x or that we're doing roughly 50x more (asset-connected) crime per capita, which doesn't seem very likely versus the late 1980s. (But again: this is a bad argument. People rightfully get mad about all kinds of terrible things that happen to one or two people at a time. They do that because they (1) can visualize it happening to them, and (2) have a sense of civic righteousness. We shouldn't need a mass violation of civil liberties to get fired up about wrongs, should we?)
psychlops 3y ago
> getting struck by lighting That is the worst! Particularly low lighting, I hit my head often.
negidius 3y ago
What makes you think it's rare? The Institute for Justice says that: > In 2018 alone, 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. departments of Justice and the Treasury forfeited over $3 billion. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/executive-summary/ https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/exec... That a lot of money. They also say: > The low median value of most forfeitures is in line with media reports about forfeiture activity. For example, from 2012 to 2017, Cook County, Illinois, law enforcement conducted over 23,000 seizures totaling $150 million. The median value of these seizures was just $1,049, and approximately three-quarters of the seizures were of cash (most of the rest were vehicles). Many of these seizures, including most cash seizures of less than $100, were clustered in the poorest parts of Chicago. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/forfeiture-is-lucrative-for-governments-nationwide/big-time-criminals-or-small-time-forfeitures/ https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/forf... If that's rare, what is common? Do you think anyone else in Cook County, Illinois stole anywhere near as much or as many times as the government did during that period using civil forfeiture alone? You're technically right that you're statistically unlikely to face civil forfeiture in your lifetime, but you're also statistically unlikely to face burglary, mugging, or any other form of non-state theft (except maybe pick-pocketing), but that doesn't mean those things are particularly rare or not something we should worry about.
storf45 3y ago
We have to rewrite a state law in Nebraska due to one county west of Lincoln abusing civil asset forfeiture. https://www.1011now.com/2024/02/02/lawmaker-seeks-ban-practice-allowing-seward-county-others-seize-millions-motorists/ https://www.1011now.com/2024/02/02/lawmaker-seeks-ban-practi...
- xbar 3y ago
  Timely.
u32480932048 3y ago
I'm statistically unlikely to be forced into arbitrary solitary confinement, or to be put on death row for a crime I didn't commit. Nevertheless, these aren't exactly "rare" occurrences, and I think they should be rarer still.
coolhand2120 3y ago
It’s highway robbery plain and simple. One does not need to contemplate the rarity of a thing to recognize the evil. Besides, it’s not rare and that you think it is speaks volumes of your knowledge of the subject. Here’s an analogy: would there be cause for alarm if the police randomly pulled over and killed people for no reason? You couldn’t complain about it. There is no recourse. This is practically the same. The police can and will seize your life savings and say “your money is guilty of a crime but you’re free to go, have a nice day”. How on earth are you ok with that even if it was rare, which it is not? They don’t even bother trying to prove anything, the fact you have a large sum of money is proof in their corrupt eyes. Some police forces get a majority of their money via this stealing, that should give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem. To top it all off they don’t even stop criminals from trafficking money. It’s all just to fleece citizens. Pure evil.
mustacheemperor 3y ago
Total federal civil asset forfeiture passed losses from burglary in 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...
Kim_Bruning 3y ago
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-... 2015 statistics. Sadly in $ rather than cases/persons, so it's a bit hard to compute p(victim of seizure) vs p(victim of burglary) from here. But certainly suggestive. It does suggest that this is on roughly the same scale as burglary.

batch12 3y ago

I hate ragebait and fear mongering (fearbait?) too. Playing devil's advocate, how do you get enough people to care without the manipulation?

woodruffw 3y ago

From a quick look online: federal CAF has gone from ~$100m/year in the 1980s to ~$4B/year by the mid-2010s. It’s hard to find more recent numbers that don’t combine federal and state forfeiture, but the general trendline is positive. That alone makes it a reasonable target of public interest, especially against the backdrop of larger civil liberty changes in the US. (Besides, “it won’t happen to you” is not a good argument. It’s very unlikely that a cop is going to shoot me for looking suspicious, but I have a civic interest in other people not being victimized.)

aqme28 3y ago
$4B/year is more than all the jewelry and precious metals stolen each year[1]. Should we not care about jewel thieves? [1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252440/property-stolen-and-recovered-in-the-us-by-type-and-value/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/252440/property-stolen-a...
supernova87a 3y ago
But that's just the $ value. Has the incidence of innocent people been growing with that number?
- woodruffw 3y ago
  Assuming it's covariant with per-seizure asset size and overall false prosecution rate, yes. To believe otherwise, you'd need to believe that the U.S. population has either grown 50x or that we're doing roughly 50x more (asset-connected) crime per capita, which doesn't seem very likely versus the late 1980s. (But again: this is a bad argument. People rightfully get mad about all kinds of terrible things that happen to one or two people at a time. They do that because they (1) can visualize it happening to them, and (2) have a sense of civic righteousness. We shouldn't need a mass violation of civil liberties to get fired up about wrongs, should we?)

psychlops 3y ago

> getting struck by lighting That is the worst! Particularly low lighting, I hit my head often.

negidius 3y ago

What makes you think it's rare? The Institute for Justice says that: > In 2018 alone, 42 states, the District of Columbia, and the U.S. departments of Justice and the Treasury forfeited over $3 billion. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/executive-summary/ https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/exec... That a lot of money. They also say: > The low median value of most forfeitures is in line with media reports about forfeiture activity. For example, from 2012 to 2017, Cook County, Illinois, law enforcement conducted over 23,000 seizures totaling $150 million. The median value of these seizures was just $1,049, and approximately three-quarters of the seizures were of cash (most of the rest were vehicles). Many of these seizures, including most cash seizures of less than $100, were clustered in the poorest parts of Chicago. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/forfeiture-is-lucrative-for-governments-nationwide/big-time-criminals-or-small-time-forfeitures/ https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/forf... If that's rare, what is common? Do you think anyone else in Cook County, Illinois stole anywhere near as much or as many times as the government did during that period using civil forfeiture alone? You're technically right that you're statistically unlikely to face civil forfeiture in your lifetime, but you're also statistically unlikely to face burglary, mugging, or any other form of non-state theft (except maybe pick-pocketing), but that doesn't mean those things are particularly rare or not something we should worry about.

storf45 3y ago

We have to rewrite a state law in Nebraska due to one county west of Lincoln abusing civil asset forfeiture. https://www.1011now.com/2024/02/02/lawmaker-seeks-ban-practice-allowing-seward-county-others-seize-millions-motorists/ https://www.1011now.com/2024/02/02/lawmaker-seeks-ban-practi...

xbar 3y ago
Timely.

u32480932048 3y ago

I'm statistically unlikely to be forced into arbitrary solitary confinement, or to be put on death row for a crime I didn't commit. Nevertheless, these aren't exactly "rare" occurrences, and I think they should be rarer still.

coolhand2120 3y ago

It’s highway robbery plain and simple. One does not need to contemplate the rarity of a thing to recognize the evil. Besides, it’s not rare and that you think it is speaks volumes of your knowledge of the subject. Here’s an analogy: would there be cause for alarm if the police randomly pulled over and killed people for no reason? You couldn’t complain about it. There is no recourse. This is practically the same. The police can and will seize your life savings and say “your money is guilty of a crime but you’re free to go, have a nice day”. How on earth are you ok with that even if it was rare, which it is not? They don’t even bother trying to prove anything, the fact you have a large sum of money is proof in their corrupt eyes. Some police forces get a majority of their money via this stealing, that should give you an idea of the magnitude of the problem. To top it all off they don’t even stop criminals from trafficking money. It’s all just to fleece citizens. Pure evil.

mustacheemperor 3y ago

Total federal civil asset forfeiture passed losses from burglary in 2014. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

Kim_Bruning 3y ago

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-took-more-stuff-from-people-than-burglars-did-last-year/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-... 2015 statistics. Sadly in $ rather than cases/persons, so it's a bit hard to compute p(victim of seizure) vs p(victim of burglary) from here. But certainly suggestive. It does suggest that this is on roughly the same scale as burglary.