Scouring I-85 and I-26 for motorists, almost 90 officers from 21 different law enforcement agencies conducted their annual “Operation Rolling Thunder” last October in Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Every year, police stop well over one-thousand cars as a way to combat drug trafficking and get tough on crime.
But the vast majority of drivers caught in the operation’s dragnet weren’t felons, according to a recent investigation by WSPA-TV, the local CBS affiliate. Last October, officers searched 171 cars, wrote more than 300 speeding tickets, and issued 1,300 traffic citations in just four days.
Out of more than 1,000 vehicles stopped, only 34 people were charged with a crime. Last year’s Operation Rolling Thunder netted only a single felony conviction and seven felony arrests; two of those cases have already been dismissed.
Boosting Police Budgets
In addition to fighting crime, supplementing police budgets seems to be behind this operation. In 2013, police seized almost $100,000, using a tactic known as civil forfeiture. Under civil forfeiture, an individual does not have to be convicted or charged with a crime to permanently lose his property. In fact, the cash seized during Rolling Thunder funds future operations. The amount of cash taken from these operations has varied wildly, ranging from $25,000 in 2012 to more than $3 million in 2007, the operation’s first year.
According to a report by the Institute for Justice, “Policing for Profit,” South Carolina merited a D+ for its abysmal civil forfeiture laws. In South Carolina, the government need only show probable cause to believe the property is related to a crime to subject it to civil forfeiture. To put that in perspective, more than 40 other states require more evidence for civil forfeiture cases.
Probable cause is the same standard used for a search warrant and is far lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” evidentiary standard used in criminal convictions. In addition, law enforcement in South Carolina can keep up to 95 percent of the proceeds from forfeited property, leading to a perverse incentive to “police for profit,” instead of the fair administration of justice.
Nick Sibilla ([email protected]) is communications associate at the Institute for Justice.
Internet Info
“Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture,” Institute for Justice: https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/policing-for-profit-the-abuse-of-civil-asset-forfeiture
