Oklahoma Law Enforcement Agencies Frustrated With FAIR Act

Law Enforcement agencies across Oklahoma are frustrated with a bill moving through congress that is aimed to change how officers handle seized weapons and other items used in a crime.

Agencies say the "FAIR Act" will only benefit criminals and hurt departments across the state.

The FAIR Act or Fifth Amendment Integrity Restoration Act calls for reform on civil asset forfeiture laws and received bipartisan support.

Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin wrote the bill and says it will address a growing concern of law enforcement’s “lawless seizure and ‘forfeiture’ of people’s private property” across the country.

Supporters say right now, it's too easy for law enforcement to seize private property in some cases without criminal charges.

But District 12 Attorney Matt Ballard says the bill isn’t going to stop the confiscation of valuable property. Instead, it would redirect it to only go to the federal government level.

He says many local agencies rely on money seized from criminals for their funding.

“You have money that you’re taking from criminal organization and they’re just putting it back into general government. So, you’re just putting money back into the federal government rather into local law enforcement,” Ballard said.

Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics Deputy Director Brian Surber says the bill is built on misinformation that law enforcement is seizing property for any reason without recourse.

“We’re not talking about your uncles bank account or taking anything like that. These false narratives and anecdotes that are not the experience. We’ve been through this before in Oklahoma and these allegations of these abuses of forfeiture and there’s anecdotes that never pan out like a lot of these reform efforts,” Surber said.

He says if this does pass, it will be detrimental to agencies across the nation and would be a major problem on city budgets.

“Any time you reduce our resources then we have to decide what important thing we’re going to do – just how it has the least significant impact,” Surber said.

The full statement from Representative Raskin can be found here.