by Ron Frazer
On the streets where illegal drugs are still easy to get at affordable prices, Florida’s police chiefs are losing the decades-long drug war. But, ironically, back in their precinct headquarters, many of these officials depend on drug raids to fatten their operating budgets. While the drug trade still enriches the bad guys, police chiefs now get a piece of the action.
On the streets where illegal drugs are still easy to get at affordable prices, Florida’s police chiefs are losing the decades-long drug war. But, ironically, back in their precinct headquarters, many of these officials depend on drug raids to fatten their operating budgets. While the drug trade still enriches the bad guys, police chiefs now get a piece of the action.
Many states, wary of overzealous police departments, require that the proceeds from seized assets be used for education or other nonpolice purposes. But the 1984 federal Comprehensive Crime Control Act, a turning point in America’s war on drugs, is a way to get around these state laws.
State and local police departments, working with U.S. agents, “federalize” money and property seized during local drug raids. The federal government gets at least 20 percent of the seized assets, but the feds give back up to 80 percent of the seizure now exempt from state law to state and local police agencies.
According to federal statistics, the share going to Florida law-enforcement agencies went from $16 million in 2000 to $29 million in 2007. Nationally, state and local agencies collected $416 million in 2007, up from $212 million in 2000.
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