Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced the reinstitution of a federal program that allows local police officers to seize personal property without so much as a criminal charge. The program is intended to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture in the never-ending War on Drugs. Federal “adoption,” as it’s referred to, allows local police to seize property without criminal charge — which is forbidden or limited under some state laws — and turn it over to the federal government.

Then, under what is known as the “equitable sharing” provision, up to 80 percent of the value of that seized property is returned directly to the local law enforcement agency for certain purposes such as paying for overtime or buying law enforcement equipment. Attorney General Eric Holder suspended most federal adoptions in 2015 because of stories of abuse — one department used funds to buy a margarita machine — and of innocent owners losing their property to overzealous police departments.

Today’s announcement stands in stark contrast to bipartisan efforts on the state and federal levels to curb this too often-abusive practice. Although the attorney general paid lip service to protections for innocent property owners, the reinstitution of federal adoption incentivizes police to employ tactics that will likely ensnare presumptively innocent people and place burdens on them to prove their property is legal. Moreover, this may have a disparate impact on ethnic minorities by incentivizing racial profiling and skewing police priorities away from public safety.

Today, asset forfeiture is a process by which the government seizes property — cash, automobiles, real estate, etc. — that allegedly was produced by, or used in, the furtherance of a crime. For example, if a person led an investment scam for several years and made millions of dollars from that fraud, the state could seize his home, bank accounts, and other proceeds that can be tied to the underlying fraud. Assets connected to drug transactions can likewise be seized, such as the car the offender was driving, any cash in the car, or the house from which the drugs were alleged to have been sold.

Read the source article at Cato Institute