Some cops aren’t just profiting from civil asset forfeiture—they’re counting on it.
The D.C. police have been factoring in millions of dollars they expect to make from civil seizures when planning their budgets, despite federal guidelines prohibiting doing so, the Washington Post discovered.
D.C. officers have made over 12,000 seizures under local and federal laws since 2009, according to the Post. $5.5 million were cash seizures, and 1,000 were cars, “some for minor offenses allegedly committed by the children or friends of the vehicle owners, documents show.”
The city was sued by the Public Defender Service last year for violating citizens’ rights in car seizures, and is now facing a bill that would eliminate their ability to keep what they seize.
Currently D.C. police are only allowed to keep the seizures they make under federal, as opposed to city, laws. They do this through the federal government’s “Equitable Sharing Program,” and make about $670,000 annually.
The federal program specifies that police departments “should not ‘spend it before you get it’ or budget anticipated receipts. Receiving agencies may not commit to the spending of sharing monies for a certain purpose in advance.”
The D.C. police’s civil seizure procedures have been under increasing scrutiny since the lawsuit, which brought to light cases where poor D.C. residents were charged exorbitant amounts to reclaim their vehicles, like this case described by the Post:
The bill to reform civil seizures, which was recently voted forward by the D.C. Council’s judiciary committee, would require the police to send all profits from seizures to the city general fund, rather than the police department. Since profits from the federal Equitable Sharing Program must expressly go to the police departments, the bill would prohibit the D.C. police from seizing anything under federal law.
The ethically questionable practice of civil asset forfeiture has come under fire in multiple cities, and the Washington Post is producing an investigative series on its effects.
The New York Times also recently uncovered video of police department seminars teaching their employees to regard civilian property as “little goodies” to take for themselves.
Read the full Washington Post report here.
