5 ms·

every six months have a citizen ballot voting whether to return funds seized or allow the department to use the funds for specified purposes keep - 2 million i

every six months have a citizen ballot voting whether to return funds seized or allow the department to use the funds for specified purposes keep - 2 million in cash from a child pornography ring return - 2500$ taken from an individual pulled over for a traffic violation without a citation or criminal charge if the funds are voted to be returned then the department has to pay interest to the original owner of the seized assets set the interest's equivalent to something that remains contemporary over time, alike a 401k investment equivalent, or if the funds were in an IRA, etc.

dalke 12y ago
From the article: "Since 2009, D.C. officers have made more than 12,000 seizures under city and federal laws" That's 2,000 per year, or 1,000 per six months. Do you think a citizen ballot with 1,000 items on it will be a meaningful check on police powers? Also, "from a child pornography ring" is likely incorrect. It should more likely be "from what is claimed to be a child pornography ring". Otherwise the ballot will say "$15,000 from a drug dealer" even if it's better described as "$15,000 from someone the officer thinks might be a drug dealer but doesn't have any real evidence other than that drug dealer carry a large amount of cash."
- justifier 12y ago
  i agree the idea is fleshed superficially, child pornography is pretty easy to get people to rally against where as drug issues enter grey areas of ethics and morality.. i am more interested in the idea of punishment for improper use of this and other vague laws as a method of deincentivising abuse i also think the logic of 'there are too many instances to be able to regulate' is flawed and incentivises the offenders to be more aggressive a possible solution to volume could be only deal in values less than a certain threshold and raise said threshold with each vote depending on number of instances until all instances are voted on you could backlog previous periods of unvoted instances into later months with lower number of instances the goal is to reduce the number of instances so this issue will hopefully solve itself as for terse yet comprehensive descriptions of the events that led to the forfeiture there is room for a discussion on how best to handle that the recent vote in my city carried with it a number of numbered and alphabetized bills that carried a sentence or two description on the ballot i figured something similar imperfect but better than 'well, its out of control so let's hope it just rights itself'
  - dalke 12y ago
    Your proposals are untenable. If my $20,000, which I got from friends and family to buy a backhoe loader for my contracting work, is confiscated for up to 6 months, then that's a huge pain in my life and career. If my car is confiscated then that's a huge impact on my ability to get to work. If you then "backlog previous periods of unvoted instances into later months with lower number of instances" it becomes worse. Prohibit civil forfeiture. It's much easier. If you want citizen oversight, get a citizen review board, and require that the putative owner is allowed to have a public defender. And make sure the public defender's office is sufficiently funded.

dalke 12y ago

From the article: "Since 2009, D.C. officers have made more than 12,000 seizures under city and federal laws" That's 2,000 per year, or 1,000 per six months. Do you think a citizen ballot with 1,000 items on it will be a meaningful check on police powers? Also, "from a child pornography ring" is likely incorrect. It should more likely be "from what is claimed to be a child pornography ring". Otherwise the ballot will say "$15,000 from a drug dealer" even if it's better described as "$15,000 from someone the officer thinks might be a drug dealer but doesn't have any real evidence other than that drug dealer carry a large amount of cash."

justifier 12y ago
i agree the idea is fleshed superficially, child pornography is pretty easy to get people to rally against where as drug issues enter grey areas of ethics and morality.. i am more interested in the idea of punishment for improper use of this and other vague laws as a method of deincentivising abuse i also think the logic of 'there are too many instances to be able to regulate' is flawed and incentivises the offenders to be more aggressive a possible solution to volume could be only deal in values less than a certain threshold and raise said threshold with each vote depending on number of instances until all instances are voted on you could backlog previous periods of unvoted instances into later months with lower number of instances the goal is to reduce the number of instances so this issue will hopefully solve itself as for terse yet comprehensive descriptions of the events that led to the forfeiture there is room for a discussion on how best to handle that the recent vote in my city carried with it a number of numbered and alphabetized bills that carried a sentence or two description on the ballot i figured something similar imperfect but better than 'well, its out of control so let's hope it just rights itself'
- dalke 12y ago
  Your proposals are untenable. If my $20,000, which I got from friends and family to buy a backhoe loader for my contracting work, is confiscated for up to 6 months, then that's a huge pain in my life and career. If my car is confiscated then that's a huge impact on my ability to get to work. If you then "backlog previous periods of unvoted instances into later months with lower number of instances" it becomes worse. Prohibit civil forfeiture. It's much easier. If you want citizen oversight, get a citizen review board, and require that the putative owner is allowed to have a public defender. And make sure the public defender's office is sufficiently funded.