Seize deez nuts

Summer Holidays! Bliss. Fucking round. Not needing to find out. Just roasting in our climate changed scorchers all round the country. Haven't even had to think about politics.

And yet, had I not, I would have missed this little treat reported in the Herald.

The Government is going to beef up the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act which is when cops seize assets/money etc from known/suspected gangs.

This new beefed version switches the burden of proof from the police - the ones y'know, making the accusation - to the gangs being accused. Now individuals will have to prove that the money they have wasn't from illegal means. What the fuck. We don't expect people to prove a negative. We don't make people prove their innocence. That's not how natural justice works.

From the article:

Under the current law, police do not need a conviction. They only have to show that someone profited from criminal offending to the lower standard of proof applied in civil cases — "on the balance of probabilities" — rather than surpassing the more difficult "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold for criminal cases.

Under the proposed change to the law, the police would be able to ask the High Court to restrain - and later forfeit - the assets of anyone "associated" with an organised criminal group, if their declared income was insufficient to pay for them. 

...

Instead of proving someone benefited directly from a specific crime, the law change would mean police would simply have to prove a lack of income and an "association" to an organised criminal group.

What in the everloving fuck. The article then goes on to say that this law may not actually be within the Bill of Rights:

The briefings reveal the proposal could conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, in particular the right to freedom of association and from unreasonable search and seizure, as well as natural justice - although the public interest may justify those limitations.

What this law will do is give police more tools to harass Māori who are over-represented in gang numbers due to over a century of mistreatment from foreign and domestic governments. Colonisation echoes yo.

We don't make rich folk prove that their income wasn't illegally gained (or you know, properly taxed), we have to prove malfeasance. The SFO takes a million years before deciding whether it will take someone to court for the white collar crimes it oversees.

In the United States, asset seizure laws are a disgrace with police routinely using them to beef up their own coffers. Over there, the police have far more freedom to just seize money/assets, oftentimes not even charging the person they've robbed. Anything that brings us closer to that shitshow needs to be resisted at all costs.

Here the money seized is put into a contestable fund which has criteria and a limited number of groups that can apply for it. But those groups include the fucking police. So talk about a creating a motivation to use and abuse this law.

These laws also disproportionately fuck the poor. And also the children of those who have their assets seized get really badly hurt. Is that the sort of government we want? 

And what is this sort of bullshittery supposed to achieve? It's not a deterrent. We need to stop buying into the lie that police prevent crime. They do not. They respond to it. High wages, food security, housing, health care, good education and addiction treatment prevent crime.

So I've got something right here you can seize police, and it ain't an asset.