I’ve posted before on the work of the Institute for Justice, and readers can find their website on my blogroll, on the left side of this website. They’re a libertarian public interest law firm, and they sometimes produced videos describing cases and issues in their work.
They have two that they’ve recently recorded, and I’ll post the first of those today. (I’ll post the second one tomorrow morning.)
One often hears that one cannot — or should not — put a price on justice. Unfortunately, many communities have turned policing into a so-called profit center. There are, among the wrongs that government many commit, few that could be worse than turning police officers into treasure hunters. “Policing for Profit” tramples on citizens’ property rights, and corrupts the departments that foolishly and greedily undertake widespread confiscations. The IJ has published a report entitled, Policing for Profit, and they’ve prepared an accompanying video.
(The IJ has a scale grading states on how far they’ve descended into making policing a profit-seeking endeavor. Wisconsin merits only a mediocre grade, a “C.”)
There’s at least one local, published story describing how selling confiscated property can cause big problems for a small town: Town, former lieutenant reach settlement.
In that situation,
A lawnmower taken as evidence in a theft investigation was sold by [Chief] Wisniewski more than two years ago to a relative of the detective who investigated the case.
[Lt.] Terrance O’Brien filed a complaint about the incident. Walworth County District Attorney Phil Koss decided not to pursue criminal charges against the chief, but the town board suspended the chief for three days without pay.Wisniewski in July filed charges against O’Brien and asked the town police committee to consider firing him. The committee in October suspended O’Brien without pay through the end of 2009 and demoted him to patrolman with a lower salary.
The Town of Linn later entered into a five-figure settlement with O’Brien, the whistle-blower:
The town might have pocketed $250 from the sale of a lawnmower more than two years ago, but it will have to pay $75,000 to a former police lieutenant who took issue with the sale.
The town of Linn reached a settlement last month with Terrance O’Brien, who in October was demoted for what town officials said was disrespecting the police chief and harming department credibility and morale by talking about an ongoing criminal investigation involving members of the department.
Far beyond our part of the world, Policing for Profit has taken hold in a more comprehensive way.
Here’s the IJ video.