This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 29th, 2016.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The feds have resumed sending kickbacks to state and local law enforcement that engage in some kinds of civil asset forfeiture,

the program known as equitable sharing was suspended late last year.

Today I spoke with Darponisheath of the Institute for Justice

and Adam Bates of the Cato Institute to understand how the feds encourage taking

Americans property without a criminal conviction.

We knew for a long time that the federal government was upset that it had to suspend these kickbacks to

state and local law enforcement but what does this mean? I mean it's sort of puts a

final nail in the coffin doesn't it?

Well the problem is is that it wasn't just the federal government that was

upset it was the state and local law enforcement that was upset and the

resuming these equitable sharing payments really

demonstrates that what law enforcement is prioritizing is their own

funding over the constitutional rights of Americans.

And although we agree that law enforcement should be adequately funded,

that funding mechanism should not be tied to property seizures.

And that's the fundamental problem

with the equitable sharing program.

One, it incentivizes seizing property.

It incentivizes state and local law enforcement to circumvent their own stricter state laws in favor

of more lenient and lacks federal laws.

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