Pubdate: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 Source: Winnipeg Free Press (CN MB) Copyright: 2003 Winnipeg Free Press Contact: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/502 Author: Jeff Presslaff FORFEITURE LAW CORRUPTS JUSTICE Re: Presumed innocent (Dec. 2). I would like to add my support for the Free Press's position on the proposed gang property forfeiture laws. There is no faster way to a fascist state than pre-emptive arrest and property seizure. That a proposal for the latter comes from a democratically elected minister is dismaying. There are several U.S. states that have similar laws, and the result has been massive police and government corruption. Some of these states actually use the proceeds of such forfeitures to fund their police departments, giving those departments the most perverse of incentives to target innocent, but perhaps troublesome, citizens. Justice Minister Gord Mackintosh has not gone that far, but the slope is slippery. Once government and law enforcement have a financial incentive to investigate individuals and seize property, the system is corrupt by definition and every arrest is suspect. There are basically four kinds of punishment that a government can mete out to lawbreakers: death, torture, incarceration, and property seizure. Each is such a burden on the convict that enlightened cultures have tried to make it reasonably certain that no one suffers these sanctions without a thorough public weighing of comprehensive, properly obtained evidence based on the presumption that the government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt. We have seen in the James Driskell case and many others that Canada's safeguards are insufficient. Mackintosh's proposal would be a huge step in the wrong direction, as the editors have so clearly outlined. This idea needs to die a fast, ignominious death, and perhaps the Doer government needs to find a justice minister who knows the meaning of the job title. JEFF PRESSLAFF Winnipeg - --- MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart