Cash-Strapped Police Departments Find New Source of Revenue: Stealing!
5th December 2009
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In Wayne County, law enforcement officials regularly seize vehicles without levying charges — even in cases in which they later concede no law was broken. The agency provides perhaps the most prolific and egregious example of what critics contend is the wrongful use of laws allowing the seizure of private property.
It’s a practice that’s paying off. The Wayne County Sheriff’s Office, which helps run the prosecutor’s forfeiture unit, took in $8.69 million from civil seizures in 2007, more than four times the amount collected in 2001. The Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office gets up to 27 percent of that money.
Remember: Whatever you think the government exists to do is wrong. Governments exist to hire and pay government workers, and they have guns at their disposal.