Classic quote from Upton Sinclair: "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!"
The source of harm is the forfeiture law.
With such laws in place, even a single bad actor can do enormous damage. We need to repeal the civil forfeiture laws.
There is no rule that says they have to do asset forfeiture. It's a choice. One of the biggest problems in the US is that laws are not very clear and clarification is left up to the courts.
Wrong. It is a system that explicitly filters out the good elements.
"US Court Ruling: You Can Be “Too Smart” to Be a Cop. Police department disqualifies anyone whose IQ is “too high" (https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-court-ruled-you-can-be-too-...)
"Court OKs Barring High IQs for Cops"(https://abcnews.go.com/US/court-oks-barring-high-iqs-cops/st...)
That's why many Bay Area LEOs focus their recruiting on recent graduates from other Bay Area forces.
This feels to me like the end result of "govt should be run like a business!" thinking. Every election cycle we hear about govt should be run like a family budget, and getting out of debt, etc. And govt should run like a business, because that's efficient, etc.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2017/01/11/police-views-publi...
It's one of those situations where IIRC the Supreme Court's relevant ruling from long ago was just plain wrong.
I think just about every sane adult agrees that this violates the Bill of Rights, regardless of any SCOTUS opinions to the contrary.
I haven't read any specific cases, but I wonder if 5th (and 4th) Amendment issues were raised at trial in the first place; perhaps those protections weren't even put in play properly.
[Update] an example of this concern is raised elsewhere in this thread[0].