Legalized Theft

One of the features of post-Reagan America has been the increase in what is basically legalized theft. It is a feature not only of business but of government itself in the forms of wage theft, civil forfeiture, and, of course, unprosecuted white collar crime.

The Greenville News has an astounding report out that looked at every civil forfeiture case in the state for the three year period covering 2014-2016. In that time, law enforcement in the state managed to seize over $17 million in assets from over 4,000 individuals. While the civil forfeiture law was designed to seize the illegally obtained assets of large criminal drug organizations and use the proceeds in furtherance of the futile war on drugs, the reality is that civil forfeiture in South Carolina largely targeted low level drug offenders who had cash or assets easily convertable into cash. In cases where cash was taken, over half the time the amount came to less than $1,000.

This being South Carolina, it is unsurprising, yet still shocking, that black males were targeted for civil forfeiture 65% of the time, despite being only 13% of the population in that state. Blacks in general were also targeted at far higher rates than whites in the state. Whites were also far more successful at challenging their forfeitures than blacks, succeeding twice as many times as their black counterparts.

In addition, in at least 40% of the cases, the target of civil forfeiture was never convicted of a crime or even charged with a crime to begin with. Oftentimes, it was just being in the wrong place at the wrong time with some cash in hand. One woman dropped off a friend who was involved in drug trafficking at a bar. Police surrounded her vehicle and took $4,670 of her money they found in the car, despite never charging her with a crime. Police also tried to seize the house of an elderly black woman because drug deals were taking place on the sidewalk in front of her house and in her yard.

When you are innocent, it can take years to recover the assets police have taken and most never receive the full amount that was originally forfeited. The onus on recovering assets is totally borne by those who have been targeted. Oftentimes, it takes over a year from when the assets were seized to when a prosecutor finally gets around to filing the paperwork to begin the civil proceeding. Once that proceeding begins, the target has just 30 days to respond and has to provide their own lawyer. The burden of proof lies squarely on the target as the state merely has to show a preponderance of evidence to keep that seized assets.

Law enforcement insists that these forfeited funds are critical to some of their ongoing police work. Yet the incentives are perverse. There are now contests among the police to “see who can make the largest or most seizures during highway blitzes. They earn hats, mementos and free dinners, and agencies that participate take home a cut of the forfeiture proceeds”. Worse, there is no oversight for how law enforcement actually spends the proceeds they have taken, often ending up supplementing the personal enrichment of local sheriffs.

Please read the whole Greenville News piece. It highlights the general abuses of civil asset forfeiture.

Legalized theft is actually even worse in America’s private prison and detention centers. Victoria Law highlighted some of those abuses in a recent op-ed in the NY Times. At present, there are at least six separate lawsuits targeting the practices in America’s private immigrant detention centers. Those centers hold more than 30,000 detainees and that number is obviously growing under the Trump administration’s current policies.

The practices in question revolve around something known as the Voluntary Work Program, where detainees work within the centers for $1 per day. The reality, of course, is that there is nothing voluntary about the program. If detainees refuse to work, they are denied essential items, such as soap, sanitary pads, or toothpaste. Others have been threatened with transfers to other violent units or were simply locked in their cells. As the class action suit brought by 60,000 former and current detainees against the GEO Group that runs the private Denver detention facility alleges, “Forced labor is a particular violation of the statute that we’ve alleged. Whether you’re calling it forced labor or slavery, the practical reality for the plaintiffs is much the same. You’re being compelled to work against your will under the threat of force or use of force”. As Law notes, these detainees have not been charged with any crime and are only being held under civil confinement, making this forced labor even more reprehensible.

Wage theft is also rampant in the regular US economy. The Economic Policy Institute estimates that US workers lose between $40 and $60 billion, that’s billion with a “b”, a year due to wage theft. Banks and telecoms have been nickel and diming their clients with hidden fees for decades. Fast food chains have been forcing employees to work unpaid overtime for years. And, of course, the Wall Street bankers have walked away with millions, the returns on massive financial fraud. And, as Michael Bloomberg and Howard Schultz are so clearly illustrating, plutocrats and the 0.1% have been engaged in decades long theft from average American taxpayers. Finally, the government has just forced thousands of Americans to work for no pay, only the promise they will be paid sometime in the future. Legalized theft is now an integral part of the American economy. Unraveling that will be hard work for Democrats.