The practice of law enforcement officers seizing a person’s money or property without charging them with any actual crime has come to derisively be known as “policing for profit.” It has been explored in depth on a number of occasions over the past few years in Tennessee, in both investigative news pieces and legislative hearings. And Volunteer State cops have been among those nationally who’ve been mocked for assuming their legal authority includes the power to purloin.
The Tennessee chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Beacon Center of Tennessee recently announced they’re teaming up to push legislation in the upcoming session to reign in forfeiture abuses by police.
One issue critics have taken with the operation of the state’s drug task forces is that they’re funded through asset seizures, which they say creates an incentive to seize cash and property, rather than focusing on drug seizures.
Beacon’s “top priority will be to send all forfeited property to the state’s general fund,” according to a statement from Lindsay Boyd, the center’s policy director. Taking this step would “remove the perverse incentives associated with the current system” by stopping officers from lining “agency budgets with the proceeds confiscated from search and seizures,” she said.
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Both organizations said they’re still in discussions with lawmakers to work out the specifics of the legislative action.
State Sen. Mike Bell, a Riceville Republican and lest session’s chairman of the Senate Government Operations Committee, has said he is working on a bill to address the matter, but the particulars aren’t nailed down. “I’m still trying to figure out exactly how I’m going to approach this,” said Bell, who chaired a Senate hearing last year that took a look at the oversight of the state’s Judicial Drug Task Forces. He added that he expects several bills dealing with the issue this year.
In Georgia last year, the ACLU and Americans for Prosperity teamed up to push legislation that would require greater oversight and scrutiny of law enforcement and prosecutors use of assets seized in investigations.
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And this August, the voters of Tennessee’s 23rd Judicial District — which has been one of the
districts at the center of the the policing for profit controversy — elected Ray Crouch as the new district attorney general.
Since being elected, Crouch has pledged his DTF will no longer use the practice to confiscate anyone’s property unless a crime can be proven. Additionally, he said his agency will be more focused in the future on seizing drugs coming into Nashville, as opposed to snatching the money leaving.
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