“What Do You Think the Point of Robbery Is?”
By 
Rarely is the point made with such clarity…
Even the staunchest advocate for preserving South Carolina’s civil asset forfeiture powers admits that cops have an incentive to seize people’s property for their own department’s benefit.
Jarrod Bruder, the executive director of the South Carolina Sheriff’s Association who frequently lobbies for law enforcement interests at the Statehouse, said that without the incentive of profit from civil forfeiture, officers probably wouldn’t pursue drug dealers and their cash as hard as they do now.
If police don’t get to keep the money from forfeiture, “what is the incentive to go out and make a special effort?” Bruder said. “What is the incentive for interdiction?”
Read farther to find, to no one’s great surprise, that civil forfeiture procedures enable police to rob black people with impunity. Otherwise, what would the incentive be to become a cop?