Policing for profit

A comment to a week-end article in the Rockford Register-Star introduced this term to you - "policing for profit." I knew about the practice, but I hadn't heard this term before.

What is it? It's the confiscation of money (and property) based on the cop's assumption that the money (or property) was the result of a drug deal (or other crime).

You can read the article and comments here. Read down the comments to the one by "snuss".

I had first heard of this years ago, when I read a news article about a Hispanic man traveling west across Alabama with $15,-20,000 cash on his person. As I recall, he was a migrant worker who had saved his earnings for years to take to family in Mexico. When he got stopped, his vehicle was searched and the cop found the money, then confiscated the money and the car.

Read the article, and then think about today's article in the Northwest Herald about Crystal Lake and its possible direction on marijuana.