Inside the Chicago Police Department’s secret budget

September 29, 2016 4:21 PM

Through numerous Freedom of Information Act requests, the Chicago Reader, working with the Chicago-based transparency nonprofit Lucy Parsons Labs and the public records website MuckRock, obtained more than 1,000 pages of Chicago Police Department documents—including the department's deposit and expenditure ledgers, internal e-mails, and purchasing records—that offer an unprecedented look into how Chicago police and the Cook County state's attorney's office make lucrative use of civil asset forfeiture.

The Reader found that CPD uses civil forfeiture funds to finance many of the day-to-day operations of its narcotics unit and to secretly purchase controversial surveillance equipment without public scrutiny or City Council oversight. (The Cook County state's attorney's office, for its part, clearly indicates narcotics-related forfeiture income in its annual budget. According to its 2016 budget, the office will use this year's expected forfeiture revenue of $4.96 million to pay the salaries and benefits of the 41 full-time employees of its forfeiture unit.)

The amount of money seized from any given individual is, by itself, negligible to police and prosecutors' budgets—the median value of a forfeiture in Illinois is $530, according to the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit Libertarian public-interest law firm. But losing this sum of money or access to a vehicle can be devastating to the impoverished people civil forfeiture often affects. And in Chicago the millions of dollars accumulated through so many individual seizures don't go toward public services like schools or roads, but are used to fund the operations of the police division that carries out civil forfeiture.

A peek behind the investigative reporting process:

Under Illinois law, if you request a large number of records, an agency may deny your request for being "unduly burdensome." Going on the assumption that CPD's most significant purchases would be greater than $5,000, we requested only purchase orders corresponding to checks above that threshold.

But we ran into another roadblock. Again, under the Illinois law, a government agency may take longer to respond if a person sends multiple requests in a short period of time. To get over this hurdle, Lucy Parsons Labs launched a collaboration with MuckRock, a FOIA and transparency website, asking ordinary users to send FOIA requests on our behalf.

Civil forfeiture on Metafilter previously:
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
The Use and Abuse of Civil Forfeiture

posted by cynical pinnacle (19 comments total)

so let me get this straight

this is the behavior of the ones who are supposed to be defending and enforcing justice?
posted by DoctorFedora at 4:34 PM on September 29, 2016 [18 favorites]

Jesus wept
posted by Fizz at 4:57 PM on September 29, 2016

I'm not sure we shouldn't just declare the Chicago PD a rogue state and send in peacekeepers.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:01 PM on September 29, 2016 [18 favorites]

Sadly this is not just a Chicago thing. Police forces across the country do this. Legally. New York and Florida are big abusers.
posted by Splunge at 5:02 PM on September 29, 2016 [18 favorites]

posted by cynical pinnacle

epony-depressing
posted by indubitable at 5:13 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm surprised they talk about civil forfeiture and not about the money making racket of parking tickets/impound because I know I'm careful and I've easily spent 500 on parking tickets this year.

And if they impound, the charges, fees, and worry effort d to keep your car are very high very quickly. I would lIke to know the costs of civil forfeiture and car seizure due to tickets etc combined.

.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:31 PM on September 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

When a government agency is allowed to handle the forfeiture proceeds it brings in—as is the case with both CPD and the Cook County state's attorney's office—it controls both "the sword and the purse," like an army that is also its own taxing authority.

So I guess the question for American democracy is: do you want to be Roman conquerors of your own territory?


But we ran into another roadblock. Again, under the Illinois law, a government agency may take longer to respond if a person sends multiple requests in a short period of time. To get over this hurdle, Lucy Parsons Labs launched a collaboration with MuckRock, a FOIA and transparency website, asking ordinary users to send FOIA requests on our behalf.

Citizens asking: "Hey, what's going on here?"
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 5:37 PM on September 29, 2016 [8 favorites]

an off-the-books stream of income used to supplement the bureau's public budget

It's in the city's audited financials, so it's not off the books.
posted by jpe at 5:45 PM on September 29, 2016

Civil Forfeiture has gotten out of hand. You don't even have to have beentrolied or proven guilty and you can't get your stuff back. It's the most hateful form of government over-reach,
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 5:59 PM on September 29, 2016 [12 favorites]

I, for one, am not super keen on this.
posted by uosuaq at 6:23 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can you look at these people and say "Yes, they are responsible enough to administer a stop and frisk program?"

I wouldn't trust them with a community outreach program.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 6:33 PM on September 29, 2016 [4 favorites]

Just today, the CA gov signed a bill by Sen. Holly Mitchell to substantially reform civil asset forfeiture here in California. It took us two years and some compromise to win it, and we weren't sure if the gov would sign it. Here's the report that we did on the issue last year.
posted by gingerbeer at 6:43 PM on September 29, 2016 [18 favorites]

From the Chicago Reader piece: When a government agency is allowed to handle the forfeiture proceeds it brings in—as is the case with both CPD and the Cook County state's attorney's office—it controls both "the sword and the purse," like an army that is also its own taxing authority. This is according to Lee McGrath, legislative counsel for the Institute for Justice, which seeks to reform civil asset forfeiture laws across the country.

Before conservatives get a little weepy and nostalgic for the thousand points of light of George H.W. Bush in light of Trump, remember this:

Bush: *Waves crack around*

"We need more jails, more prisons, more courts and more prosecutors."
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 7:29 PM on September 29, 2016 [1 favorite]

Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year
posted by srboisvert at 4:57 AM on September 30, 2016 [11 favorites]

I'm surprised they talk about civil forfeiture and not about the money making racket of parking tickets/impound because I know I'm careful and I've easily spent 500 on parking tickets this year.

I am not at all defending the racket of parking tickets and impound fees, but at least there's a legal process, even one that's obviously being abused.

IANAL, but I can't comprehend how "civil asset forfeiture" is constitutional under the Fifth Amendment, which holds in part: "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

Civil asset forfeiture seems obviously to be less being deprived of property with due process of law and more being robbed by an armed gang.
posted by Gelatin at 5:56 AM on September 30, 2016 [4 favorites]

Can you look at these people and say "Yes, they are responsible enough to administer a stop and frisk program?"

I wouldn't trust them with a community outreach program.

They can't even figure out how to give people free ice cream without being creeps about it.
posted by tobascodagama at 7:51 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mr.Encyclopedia: "Can you look at these people and say "Yes, they are responsible enough to administer a stop and frisk program?"

I wouldn't trust them with a community outreach program."

"Not fit to be dog catcher."
posted by Splunge at 8:20 AM on September 30, 2016 [1 favorite]

"The judge simply asked if her son's criminal case had been resolved. It hadn't, so by law, the judge was allowed to delay the civil litigation until after the criminal case was over... But reform efforts that seek to limit or end civil asset forfeiture in Illinois must confront a cluster of state laws that include forfeiture provisions...as well as numerous drug laws like the Cannabis Control Act and the Controlled Substance Act....also the assemblage of prosecutor and police associations—including the Illinois State's Attorneys Association and the Illinois Drug Enforcement Officers Association—and their allies in the legislature, which want to ensure that civil forfeiture can continue unabated."

Just bad cops. Nothing wrong with the system here.

You need a preponderance of the evidence to prove you obtained your money or property legally or didn't know it was used in a crime. In what world is that constitutional due process of law?
posted by Smedleyman at 9:51 AM on September 30, 2016 [2 favorites]

If you want to understand something about how it's done, watch Cops. I'm absolutely serious. Watch one of the shows where the do a drug buy "sting". This is usually in a "bad" neighborhood.

The have unmarked cars all over. They have one officer who is the seller. The cop hangs around on a corner, now bereft of real "dealers". Dude drives up. Cop says, what do you need? Dude says crack or weed usually. Cop sells him fake drugs. Dude starts to drive off. Radio cop calls something like, the deal was done!

Suddenly the buyer is surrounded by cops. He's dragged from his car. Face down on the road. After he's cuffed and read his rights he is told to empty his pockets. Regardless of the amount of money he has, it's evidence. Oh and, your car is being impounded. It's now forfeit.

That's a bit fucked up, innit? Does that sound sort of like, entrapment?

Now consider. This is what is shown on TV. The cops are fully aware that they are on camera and are at their best behavior. Let's say that this is .05% of all of these kind of arrests.

Now I call on you to imagine every other arrest like this. 99.95%. No cameras.

Fuck that shit.
posted by Splunge at 7:37 PM on October 3, 2016 [4 favorites]