To Protect and Collect

Taking Cash Into Custody

A Special Report On Police And Drug Money Seizures

DIVERTED DOLLARS MEAN LOSSES FOR EDUCATION

At least eight states have constitutional provisions that require money and
property forfeited under state law to go to education.

But little or no drug money appears to get there.

Police in North Carolina get around their constitution by simply handing
their seizures to federal agencies, which then return up to 80 percent to
the police.

As a result, law enforcement there has reaped more than $14 million in the
last three years. (That figure may include money from actual joint
investigations, however, and all of that money might not have been able to
be forfeited under state laws.)

In North Carolina, as in many of the other states, it's difficult to
determine how much money actually went to education, because there is no
statewide accounting.

In Wake County -- the location of Raleigh, the state capital -- the sheriff
refused to disclose the amount in his county, and a number of other
officials didn't know.

Michael Crowell, an attorney who works for the state board of education,
said he didn't know about the education drain until recently, but now he
plans to begin reviewing legal remedies to get forfeiture proceeds to schools.

He criticized the police hand-offs, saying that ``mentality is just
puzzling and troubling. It's atrocious.''

Wisconsin officials also didn't know police were handing off seizures.

``I don't know where they think, without a constitutional amendment, they
can get away with unilaterally making that type of decision,'' said Calvin
Potter, an assistant superintendent for the Wisconsin Department of Public
Instruction and a state legislator for 23 years.

But Wisconsin law enforcement officials freely admit they hand off seizures
to federal agencies so they can get the money back.

In Nebraska, voters changed the constitution in the 1980s to let police
have half the forfeiture money, which previously had all gone to education.
Legislators say the change came at the request of law enforcement.

But now police in Nebraska say they need all the money. And for several
years, they have been turning the majority of seizures over to a federal
agency rather than filing under state law.

Police in Missouri also use the federal hand-off to keep money instead of
sending it to schools.

Situations differ in other states:

In West Virginia, the constitution requires any property seized to go to
the school fund. But in 1988, state Sen. Lloyd Jackson, then the Judiciary
Committee chairman, co-sponsored a bill that said forfeitures under the
state forfeiture act aren't the same as those in the state constitution.
Other laws were passed directing forfeiture proceeds to a special law
enforcement fund.

Today, Jackson is the Education Committee chairman. An aide said Jackson
was too busy to be interviewed and cannot remember why he sponsored the law.

(Some police still hand off seizures.)

In Indiana, too, the legislature has passed a law helping police to bypass
schools with their seizures.

Washington state's constitution sends forfeited money to the state to be
used for education. But state law conflicts with the constitution, sending
the money instead to the law enforcement agency that makes the seizure.

In Wyoming, police may not purposely be avoiding the constitutional
education provision. It's just that no one knows about it, according to the
attorney general's office.

Part 1c, http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n680/a03.html