(BusinessInsider) The New Yorker's Sarah Stillman has a heartbreaking story out on an appalling police tactic — civil forfeiture, which lets local police departments make tons of money from taking supposed criminals' property.
Civil forfeiture is largely a product of the war on drugs. In 1984, Congress passed an omnibus crime bill that gave local police departments a cut of the assets seized during drug raids and other investigations.
Through civil forfeiture, cops can take property they believe was obtained illicitly before you're convicted of any wrongdoing in a court of law. The people whose assets have been seized then have to go to court to try to get it back, which may cost more money than the property itself.
In many cases, civil forfeiture affects poor minorities who have little recourse.
The New Yorker profiled one elderly West Philadelphia couple, Mary and Leon Adams, whose home was seized after their son allegedly sold $20 worth of pot on their porch. (They received an eviction notice but were able to stay in their home during the forfeiture proceedings because of Leon's health conditions.) They were never even charged with a crime.
Victor Ramos Guzman, a Pentecostal church secretary from El Salvador, was driving $28,500 worth of parishioners' donations to buy a new parcel of land for the church with his brother-in-law when they were stopped for speeding in Virginia.
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