Red States Are Different

[kent_allard_jr]

I highly recommend Sarah Stillman's New Yorker article "The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture." She describes how police departments use a kind of legalized piracy, seizing people's cars, money and even their homes, often on little more than suspicion of drug trafficking. Most of the victims, naturally, are poor blacks and Hispanics; the police are

Comments

[moonlightalice]

It's an excellent article, but this kind of corruption isn't strictly red state, especially as it relates to the drug war. As you probably know, most US Attorneys Offices get funding and bonuses based on the number of drug crimes they prosecute. A former assistant US Attorney spoke at my school about how frustrating it was that they wanted to go after predatory lenders and white collar fraud, but all their money was tied up in successful drug prosecutions, so they had to allocate resources accordingly.

[kent_allard_jr]

Oh, it isn't the corruption that's strictly red state -- as you know, one of the examples is in Philadelphia -- it's the unironic "I'm on a mission from God" stuff I was referring to.

(Although one detail jumped out at me, that in most states the forfeiture funds go to some independent agency; IIRC the states that didn't follow this practice, where the police were allowed to pocket the money, were all in the South. Why they didn't see, or didn't care about, the obvious conflict of interest is a question I can't begin to answer.)

That's interesting about the Assistant US Attorney, and sounds like something from _The Wire_! I'm as happy with numbers as anybody, but when I teach methods this fall, I hope to reinforce the idea that "just because you can't count it doesn't mean it doesn't count." The fact that it's the drug war -- not even terrorism or homicides -- makes it even worse ...