DIVERSIONS TAKE MONEY DUE SCHOOLS

Laws differ from state to state, but police still sidestep them.

For example, little or no drug money appears to get into educational funds
even though that's where at least eight state constitutions require
forfeited money and property to go.

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

As a result, N.C. law enforcement has reaped more than $14 million in the
last three years. (That figure may include money from 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 handoffs, 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.

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

Situations differ in other states. State supreme courts in New Mexico and
Nebraska say it's double jeopardy to both convict a person and take his
property.

But police are getting around those decisions by using federal agencies.