Justice Department resumes sharing seized drug money after police quit cooperating on raids

The Department of Justice tried to make local law enforcement go cold turkey on drug money seizures but now has given in to demand for the program.

In December, the Justice Department suspended indefinitely a program to share proceeds from seizures of individuals’ money and property in drug and other arrests with police departments that cooperate with federal authorities on such raids.

The Justice Department’s Equitable Sharing Program was popular among local law enforcement agencies, which received more than $4.7 billion from 2000 through 2013. After the December suspension, law enforcement agencies began dropping out of federal joint task forces.

Under pressure from local law enforcement agencies, Justice reinstated the program late last month.

A major selling point for local agencies to outsource officers to joint task forces, such as the Drug Enforcement Administration or state-run groups, was that they would receive compensation that they could use for extra hires or overtime pay, said Chuck Spahos, executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia.

“Part of what got that idea sold around here was that the true proceeds from crime would be turned around to fight crime,” Mr. Spahos said. “For a local jurisdiction to buy into a concept to hire an officer and send him away, we need to be able to pay for that.”

The Justice Department program allows local law enforcement to collect a percentage of net proceeds from a forfeiture in which the agency has played a role.

When the program was suspended in December, police departments and sheriffs’ agencies began to worry about their budgets and whether they could afford to keep officers detailed to the task forces.

Facing uncertainty about funding from the program and worried about paying for officers detailed to federal cases, some medium-sized agencies started to pull officers off of task forces, said Jonathan Thompson, executive director and CEO of the National Sheriffs’ Association.

“I know of at least a half-dozen county task forces that said, ’We have to back down,’” Mr. Thompson said.

Others remained active in task forces but indicated that they might pull out when it was time to plan their next budgets, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Spahos said.

Concern that local agencies might drop out of task forces was particularly marked at the DEA, which operates more than 250 state and local task forces.

Officials in the DEA worked to calm fears that the program’s suspension could become permanent, said DEA spokesman Russ Baer.

“We just had to emphasize DEA’s commitment to the sharing program,” Mr. Baer said. “The Equitable Sharing Program is a vital component that assists both the DEA and the local departments.”

With the program reinstated after just three months, the number of local departments that pulled out of DEA task forces was kept to a minimum, Mr. Baer said. In Tampa, Florida, where Mr. Baer was recently assigned, one out of 14 local agencies withdrew from a DEA task force during the three months, he said.

“There were a few departments here and there that pulled back,” he said. “For the most part, people generally stuck it out.”

Critics say the program gives local law enforcement incentives to police for profit, but the Justice Department has framed the program’s suspension and reinstatement as a budget rather than policy issue.

Congress cut $1.2 billion from Justice’s Assets Forfeiture Fund as part of budget maneuvering, but agency spokesman Peter Carr said the program was reinstated when the financial solvency of the fund improved. Mr. Carr declined to say how much money was in the fund or where it came from. He said the balance fluctuates daily.

Meanwhile, Justice Department officials have stressed that the program’s suspension was never meant to be permanent.

“It’s worth repeating that we did not make the decision to defer Equitable Sharing payments lightly, and it was always our intent to resume payments as soon as it became financially feasible,” M. Kendall Day, head of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section, wrote in a letter announcing renewal of the program.

Not everyone was pleased with the program’s reinstatement.

The Institute for Justice, a nonprofit public interest law firm that researches asset forfeiture issues and estimates that $4.7 billion was spent on equitable sharing from 2000 through 2013, is critical of the program overall.

The Equitable Sharing Program allows police to take a cut of proceeds derived from police seizures of cash and property from individuals suspected of crimes regardless of whether they are criminally charged or convicted. Civil rights groups say the fact that police are able to keep profits gives incentives to conduct seizures.

Institute for Justice lawyer Darpana Sheth said the decision to restart the program “shows that law enforcement values funding its own operations over protecting constitutional rights.”

“By offering substantial payouts to participating agencies, equitable sharing incentivizes law enforcement to evade state laws and pad their budgets,” Ms. Sheth said. “Local and state law enforcement agencies should be adequately funded, but their budgets should not in any way depend on property seizures.”

The restart of the sharing program, effective March 28, resumes payments for current seizures and gives agencies any equitable sharing payments approved before the program’s suspension on Dec. 21.

Mr. Thompson said he is “cautious but optimistic” about continuing the Equitable Sharing Program.

Mr. Spahos said police departments may be wary that the funding could be pulled again, but he thinks Justice officials now have a better understanding of the program’s importance to law enforcement.

“The fact that the powers that be have heard how important this is and analyzed the issue, I think is a substantial step,” Mr. Spahos said.