Thanks to Perverse Drug War Incentives, Cops Target Pot Smokers Instead of Violent Criminals

From Radley Balko's article in the Huffington Post, "Driven By Drug War Incentives, Cops Target Pot Smokers, Brush Off Victims Of Violent Crime." 

"Arresting people for assaults, beatings and robberies doesn't bring money back to police departments, but drug cases do in a couple of ways. First, police departments across the country compete for a pool of federal anti-drug grants. The more arrests and drug seizures a department can claim, the stronger its application for those grants.

"The availability of huge federal anti-drug grants incentivizes departments to pay for SWAT team armor and weapons, and leads our police officers to abandon real crime victims in our communities in favor of ratcheting up their drug arrest stats," said former Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police Stephen Downing. Downing is now a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, an advocacy group of cops and prosecutors who are calling for an end to the drug war.

  

Secondly, asset forfeiture creates perverse police agencies to use resources and manpower on drug crimes at the expense of violent crimes.  Under civil asset forfeiture, police can seize property from people merely suspected of drug crimes. So long as police can show even the slightest link of drug activity to a car, some cash, or even a home, they can seize it. In the majority of cases, most or all of the seized cash goes back to the police department. In some cases, the department has taken possession of cars as well, but generally non-cash property is auctioned off, with the proceeds then going back to the department. An innocent person who has property seized must go to court and prove his property was earned legitimately, even if he was never charged with a crime. The process of going to court can often be more expensive than the value of the property itself."

MP: After reading this article about the perverse financial incentives that cause cops to target the victimless crime of smoking pot at the expense of targeting violent crimes with real victims, is it really possible that any rational, sensible, intelligent, logical person could defend America's "War on Drugs"?

HT: Don Boudreaux