As Martin Armstrong wrote last week on his website Armstrong Economics, "the police are now taking more assets than the criminals.”
“The police have been violating the laws to confiscate assets all over the country,” Armstrong wrote. “A scathing report on California warns of pervasive abuse by police to rob the people without proving that any crime occurred. Even Eric Holder came out in January suggesting reform because of the widespread abuse of the civil asset forfeiture laws by police.”
Last year, Washington, DC paid $855,000 to settle a class action lawsuit that alleged the city’s policy of seizing and taking residents’ cash violated their constitutional rights.
According to the Institute’s findings, in Minnesota, for example, the average value of forfeited property was $1,250, while in Georgia half of the property seized by law enforcement in 2011 was worth less than $650.
As the costs associated with trying to retrieve the seized funds often surpass what was taken, many people do not even bother and the funds are taken from them forever.
