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title: "@[311403:2048:Jonathan Cain] writes: "Did you know that the police…"
date: 2016-12-31
source: facebook
type: Archer T. Ships shared a link.
---

# @[311403:2048:Jonathan Cain] writes: "Did you know that the police…

*December 31, 2016 · Facebook*

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[http://ij.org/over-100-editorials-call-for-civil-forfeiture-reform/](http://ij.org/over-100-editorials-call-for-civil-forfeiture-reform/){target="_blank"}
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@\[311403:2048:Jonathan Cain\] writes:\
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\"Did you know that the police steal more from people than burglars do? In 2014, the value of assets seized by police (more than \$5 billion) passed the value of assets stolen by other criminals (less than \$4 billion), and the delta between the two has only grown.\
Ever seen a corvette painted as a patrol car and wondered why a police department was buying sports cars? They\'re not buying them; they\'re taking them through something called asset forfeiture.\
Asset forfeiture empowers the police to take your stuff if they suspect\--often without any basis and with zero due process\--that it has been used in or is the result of a crime. The police get to keep your stuff, too! This means that the police are incentivized to steal as much of your stuff as they can, even if you didn\'t commit a crime, aren\'t charged with a crime, and can demonstrate that your property has nothing to do with crime.\
For example, maybe you have a couple thousand in cash in your car when you get pulled over. The police know that only drug dealers carry cash, so they just take it and send you on your way. You almost certainly won\'t get it back, but don\'t worry, the police will put your money to good use. They might keep your car, too. Or your house. Imagine having your life savings taken from you because a cop knows you\'re too poor to fight back.\
While the Obama Administration was dreadful on asset forfeiture\--amounts stolen nearly tripled under his leadership\--Jeff Sessions, Trump\'s likely nominee for attorney general, promises to continue such inhumane policies. Sessions mistakenly believes that 95% of seizures are from dope dealers, whereas, in fact, according to the Institute for Justice, between 1997 and 2013, only 13% of seizures were in criminal cases, and 88% were done by an administrative agency rather than a court. So while Sessions and other fans of authoritarian policing pretend that asset forfeiture is really about starving Scarface and El Chapo, they\'re either gravely mistaken or lying.\
Click through a few of the hundreds of op-eds linked here to read example after example of people whose lives have been ruined by the American police state.\"\
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[http://ij.org/over-100-editorials-call-for-civil-forfeiture-reform/](http://ij.org/over-100-editorials-call-for-civil-forfeiture-reform/){target="_blank"}
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