Civil forfeiture is an outgrowth of the war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism). Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror. I doubt we will be able be able to end civil forfeiture until we end the war on drugs.
> Just like NSA spying is an outgrowth of the war on terror
A lot of the framework and the beginnings of domestic spying really started after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The underpinnings of the Patriot Act were originally passed then.
> war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism)
I think this is an oversimplification of the history of the war on drugs. Racism is certainly a facet, but the association of drugs use with counter culture and the anti war movement are just as important. Soaring crime rates in the 70s and 80s are also related to the war on drugs. There were also cultural and political incentives to ratchet it up in the name of :doing something". Average people of every racial and economic background were concerned about drugs in the early 80s. Boiling it down to any one thing really does a disservice to complexity of the issue. Radley Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop"[1] has a lot of good historical information on the topic.
The War on Drugs picked up steam well after crime started rising. Violent crime tripled (288,460 to 738,820) between 1960 and 1960 and population only increased by ~20 million. It then doubled again by 1980. The Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act was passed in 1970, and the DEA was created in '73. Drug raids really picked up in the mid 70s. The drug war really became what we know today with the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984.
There isn't broad consensus on what causes crime rates to soar from roughly 1960 to 1992.
I'm not sure what was meant by "between 1960 and 1960", so I'll assume you mean the period 1960-70. A tripling in a decade for the behavior of a fairly stable population can't be real, so this was probably more closely related to effort devoted to policing, changes in classification policy, etc. If you linked to something we could consider it.
> A lot of the framework and the beginnings of domestic spying really started after the Oklahoma City Bombing. The underpinnings of the Patriot Act were originally passed then
Not really sure what you are trying to say here. Your tone suggests that you are refuting OP's point when you are actually reinforcing it (the Oklahoma bombing was a terrorist attack albeit domestic)
I think it's interesting and worth pointing out that the trend began before the "War on Terror", which in my experience people often don't know. My point was to sort of say, yes but let's look a little deeper as the history is interesting and important.
Yeah, the "War on Terror" picked up and expanded upon prior art so to speak. Here's Biden talking about the history of the Patriot Act in 2002[1]. You'll note the 1994 bill he mentions actually came after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, which I'd neglected to mention earlier.
If you’re saying that the “war on drugs” was motivated by any less than 50% racism you lost me. Yes, it was also useful in marginalizing anti war and counter cultural movements, but that was a side-benefit. The war on drugs was started in 1971 - and was a driving force behind that “soaring crime rate”
It's hard to say for sure. The first raids using military like tactics were carried out in Humboldt County, CA against "hippies". Now John Ehrlichman did tell Harpers Magazine in 1994 that in 1968 they intended to target " the antiwar left and black people," so there is that. But if you read through contemporary commentary from the 1970s you'll find a politically and racially diverse coalition in support of drug laws. Were some of them animated by racial animas, almost certainly, but it's not that simple. Charles Rangel, the then head of the Congressional Black Caucus whipped for the passage of strict drug laws as early as 1968.
The average American in 1970 really wanted more drug enforcement as an ends unto itself. It was something of a national preoccupation across the political divide by 1980.
How do you even begin to quantify such a thing as intent? Not least when the best evidence for intent is a dodgy quote published years after the death of the man who might have disputed it?
>Civil forfeiture is an outgrowth of the war on drugs (which was itself an outgrowth of anti-black racism)
Where did you get this ridiculous counter-factual? As a group, Black people,by fact of being concentrated in poor and urban areas, where drug violence did its greatest destruction to the public realm, were some of the biggest proponents for the war on drugs.[0] This spanned all levels of government, from community organizers in New York City to the Congressional Black Caucus.
In a surprising turn of events, sometimes mistakes are just mistakes.
Asking for something to be done / law and order in your community is different from asking for a “the war on drugs”. Black communities had problems, the gov delivered racism and called it law & order. Anyway, here’s a source if you’d like to hear more about the racist underpinnings of the war on drugs https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/on-the-med...
Given that the war on drugs existed before the ramp up of civil forfeiture, I doubt that. But I’m down to find out if you can get that single law passed - my point was the perception of drug dealers rich off drug money are the reason there’s not a lot of support for ending civil forfeiture.
