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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 com
by 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 agoBut that's just the $ value. Has the incidence of innocent people been growing with that number?
- woodruffw 3y agoAssuming 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?)