from Hacker News

Inside the Chicago Police Department’s secret budget

by zmanian on 9/29/16, 5:25 PM with 153 comments

• by silvercoast on 9/29/16, 6:52 PM

  I've had my property stolen by the police twice. The first time was 14 years ago when I was falsely accused of stealing two cell phones. There was a video surveillance tape of the theft, two other guys clearly did it but the store employee tried to claim I knew them. He happened to be the boyfriend of an ex-girlfriend.

  It took me a year to fight it and when the charges were finally dismissed, I got all my property back except my $500 cell phone. It was a basic misdemeanor charge but I was threatened with an unrelated felony if I didn't take a plea deal. I refused and the prosecutor moved to withdraw the case citing lack of evidence, preventing me from winning via acquittal.

  The fact that I was falsely accused of stealing two cheap cell phones and then the police stole my phone instilled a permanent distrust in the police.

  Then recently, I got involved in a dispute with a roommate and all my property was taken to a police warehouse. When I went to get it, the police officer told me there had been a robbery and all my stuff was stolen. About $6000 worth including priceless family items.

  I'm a white guy who doesn't break the law, although I am a bit politically active and rebellious. What I have experienced by the police and justice system is enraging and disenfrancising. If I was surrounded by poverty and crime, and had no hope for the future, I could see myself becoming emboldened against the police and turn into a life of crime.

  The way they treat people is wrong. The plea bargin system is a worse crime than most of the petty offenses people do. The way they treat you in jail is malicious and purposely antagonistic. It's a mild form of torture that doesn't rise to sensational levels but it perpetuates and sustains an atmosphere of distrust and hatred towards authority figures.

• by djsumdog on 9/29/16, 6:05 PM

  Civil forfeiture, plea bargains and losing the ability to vote are all great detriments to our society. They prevent those who are involved in crimes from being able to get back on their feet and show an increasing number of those in the justice system don't believe in rehabilitation. It's labelling theory in practice and it's the reason the US has the highest incarceration and repeat incarceration rate of the western world.

  Plea bargains reward disloyalty and often allow some of the worst people a ticket out of their crimes by implicating someone else. It's just a game and prosecutors want their stats to go up, no matter what is good for society.

  I don't even want to touch the sex offender registry. I'll just say this. Australia's registry is confidential.

• by adekok on 9/29/16, 6:41 PM

  "Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year"

  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/23/cops-...

  Who, exactly, do we need protection from?

• by protomyth on 9/29/16, 6:09 PM

  "The judge said, 'I can't give you back your car, because it would be right back on the road with drugs.' " (Karkula declined to comment for this story.)

  This is why civil forfeiture should be banned. I'm still of the opinion that any ticket money should be handed over to a superfund with strict rules on spending never to return to the police or judicial coffers.

• by akama on 9/29/16, 6:37 PM

  Hi, I'm one of the people who worked on some of the data visualization for this story. The people behind this worked very hard and did an excellent job. I would also like to point out, this is why police transparency is very important in modern society.

• by atombath on 9/29/16, 6:23 PM

  Shown here are two good reasons for why people don't respect the police anymore. They take your assets due to a subtle association to a crime. They spend it without oversight on tools of mass surveillance. Ultimately, both of these things exacerbate crime. Quite an occupying force nowadays.

• by crooked-v on 9/29/16, 6:07 PM

  I find it absurd that civil forfeiture would be "reformed" instead of recognized as blatantly unconstitutional.

• by snsr on 9/29/16, 6:30 PM

  "Civil forfeiture" is theft. It's also plainly unconstitutional.

• by Bud on 9/29/16, 7:16 PM

  Civil forfeiture must end. But until it can be ended, the least we can do is to make certain that any forfeited funds do NOT go to the police departments which hold power over deciding these cases. The funds should go to the federal government so that there is no local incentive to unjustly seize assets from citizens. That much should be obvious, in a democracy, right?

• by zmanian on 9/30/16, 12:46 AM

  Governor Brown signed a massive civil forfeiture reform for California today.

  https://www.aclunc.org/news/gov-brown-signs-historic-bill-re...

• by Sleaker on 9/29/16, 6:49 PM

  Woah, seems crazy that the police can keep something that was technically stolen property and not return it to the original owner. How can a judge argue that it will just be used to transfer drugs again, it's not the drug offender's property and she wasn't accessory... That's not relevant to the case, the owner isn't using it to traffic drugs.

  IANAL, just confused.

• by bdavisx on 9/29/16, 6:19 PM

  I wonder if there are any statistics on race vs. forfeiture.

• by wehadfun on 9/29/16, 6:58 PM

  This is why we need to stop only caring about the presidential election and focus on local politics.

• by xg15 on 9/30/16, 10:59 AM

  All the other reasons in the thread why civil asset forfeiture is bad aside, it seems to me like a cood vehicle for corruption, too.

  Imagine I run a drug cartel and want to make a deal with some corrupt cops. How can I pay them without raising suspicion? Simple:

  - Open a new bank account and transfer the payment to it;

  - Given an "anonymous" hint to the cops that the bank account is connected to the cartel; (indeed it is)

  - The corrupt cops could seize the money using asset forfeiture and even make a nice PR show how it allows them to make progress in the war against drugs...

• by throw004 on 9/29/16, 7:25 PM

  $19000 for one month's use of cellphones? Sounds like corruption to me.

• by gravypod on 9/29/16, 11:20 PM

  "Routine> 18.6 million"

  Holy crap.

• by Grollicus on 9/29/16, 8:07 PM

  Why is this on HN? Who cares how Americans abuse their poor? Whats that to do with technology?