In short: If you are carrying cash you have to worry less about a thug stealing it and worry more about cops stealing it.
Note: Assets stolen by law enforcement through CAF far exceeds assets stolens to home burglaries in USA.
Note: Assets stolen by law enforcement through CAF far exceeds assets stolens to home burglaries in USA.
Police don't have to file any charges to keep the cash. The onus is on the victim to file a claim. Average cost to file a claim including attorney fees is $3000. Average size of forfeitured property is $1400. Most people let go of that money and no charges are filed and hence we do not have any data on the question you have raised. Various states have refused to share this data as well making it hard to obtain.
If the cops have not seeked conviction and have not obtained it I would argue that it is just plain theft.
Also, repeating my comment from below:
Specifically, related quotes from Wikipedia:
"From 2005 to 2010, government seizures of assets from both criminals as well as innocent citizens went from $1.25 billion to $2.50 billion"
"In 2010, there were 15,000 cases of forfeitures."
If you divide $2.5B by 15k cases, you'll get avg. $166k/case, which is far from $1400 you mention. So either your source or my interpretation of Wikipedia is wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
Either way. https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/forf...
It is more complex than that. Under CAF the property is on trial and not you. While the state laws vary, around 12 states use what is call Administrative forfeiture. All they have to do is send you a notice claiming they intend to take away your property and you have 20 days to approach the court. 20 days. If you fail to do so, there is nothing you can do and the government keeps the property.
But even if you decide to file the claim, federal and state laws grant the power to government authorities to decide if the case should go to court. Federal law and some state laws give government attorneys the power to decide whether the claim can proceed to court. Most often you wont get your day in court at all.
CBP is the worst of federal agencies. By law when it steals your property, it is required to inform this to DOJ who is then supposed to either return the property or follow judicial forfeiture. In 7 out of 11 cases CBP simply ignores the law. The desperate property owner then have no choice but to negotiate with CBP which than splits the loot and returns only part of it to the owner.
> From 2005 to 2010, government seizures of assets from both criminals as well as innocent citizens went from $1.25 billion to $2.50 billion
I think your math is wrong because you are dividing 5 years worth of money with 2010's number of cases. But that is not very relevant. Bernie Madoff's few billion dollars were also under CAF so they would skew the mean. Also I would suggest look at state data. Institute of Justice has much detailed numbers. Florida's average CAF value is $4.5k and every other state is below $2k where as median cost to litigate is around $3000K.
> The median currency forfeiture is small, averaging just $1,276 across 21 states with available data. In some states, the median forfeiture is only a few hundred dollars. These low values suggest forfeiture often is not targeting kingpins or major financial fraudsters. [1] > In the four states that track this information, people seek return of their property in 22% of cases or fewer. [1]
> The low median value of most forfeitures is in line with media reports about forfeiture activity. For example, from 2012 to 2017, Cook County, Illinois, law enforcement conducted over 23,000 seizures totaling $150 million. The median value of these seizures was just $1,049, and approximately three-quarters of the seizures were of cash (most of the rest were vehicles). Many of these seizures, including most cash seizures of less than $100, were clustered in the poorest parts of Chicago. [2]
These trends of median value of CAF hold pretty much for every state but you can look at the IJ report yourself.
But any rate the original point stands, cops steal more than burglars.
[1] - https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/pfp3content/exec... [2] - https://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit-3/policing-for-pro...
My understanding $1.25B and $2.5B are per year numbers. But even if they are not, they are still 10x time more than your number.
ij.org is not the primary source, it does not reference the originals, and clearly has an agenda, so a different source is needed for the raw data.
Secondly, while I suspect 15K is far to less number perhaps it might be tru for federal CAF, but we need to add state CAFs as well as Cook county alone seems to have seen over 23K instances over five year period.
IJ of course has an agenda to end CAF and without a doubt they will cherrypick data that suites their agenda, which is still better data that law enforcement which has far nefarious motives may provide.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...
(I haven't attempted to see if that breakdown can be derived, I suspect it's true, but if you won't find it convincing it isn't worth trying to figure it out. :) )
I am unsure about that. I'd argue that one must only include undisputed forfeitures. Despite the arguments about attorney costs, the total sum indicates that most of forfeited property costs much more than the cost of an appeal.
Specifically, related quotes from Wikipedia:
"From 2005 to 2010, government seizures of assets from both criminals as well as innocent citizens went from $1.25 billion to $2.50 billion"
"In 2010, there were 15,000 cases of forfeitures."
If you divide $2.5B by 15k cases, you'll get avg. $166k/case, which is far from averages posted above.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...
What if you were the .1%? I think any amount of unjustified seizure of money from citizens is unacceptable.
I think that's fine. It is not like judgement is 100% correct. We prefer the current system that might convict an innocent to a complete lack of a system. Doesn't mean there's no room for improvement. But also doesn't excuse using two incomparable metrics.