Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws

An article written in 2013 published in the New Yorker, titled Taken, reveals some of the true implementations of something called civil asset forfeiture laws. This law enables our countries law enforcement agencies to seize and confiscate any citizen’s assets, if they have suspicion of those things being linked to a crime. Often times though, these confiscations occur in the absence of a conviction or evidence. And so in effect, citizens can have their possessions stolen by the police without any proof of wrongdoing or illegal activity.

Taken focuses on a Texas family who had 2400 dollars stolen from them by the state under suspicion of attempting to buy drugs. With the only grounds for this suspicion being that the officer smelled marijuana when pulling over the family. When the car was searched nothing drug related was found. The family was then brought to the station and had their charges of money laundering and child endangerment dropped when they agreed to let law enforcement take the money.

Occurrences like these happen quite often and goes to show the extent of how much power we put in the hands of law enforcement. This law gives the people profiting from the amount of confiscations, the jurisdiction over whether or not something deserves to be confiscated. If police corruption wasn't evident enough, instances like these show just how blatant it really is.