NORTH CAROLINA, USA — A new rule for law enforcement is drawing concern from some local sheriffs.
The Department of Justice recently ruled that investigators can no longer use confiscated cash for other cases, instead they have to pull from their own budget.
To further break it down, the DOJ said agencies across the nation cannot use money seized during arrests or raids.
In the past, agencies could use that money to find more criminals, during undercover operations, for example.
"I have no problem using seized money from the bad guys to go after the bad guys," Rockingham County's Sheriff, Sam Page said.
Now, that money can only be used for things like training, equipment, and reward money.
Page disagrees with the new policy, knowing he'll now have to ask county government for tax dollars to fight crime.
"I find it very hard to go ask the county commissioners for $10,000 or $20,000 to be able to use that money to purchase drugs with," Page said.
At any one time, he said his office can have up to $100,000 in confiscated cash. This change prevents them from using any of it to bust more criminals.
Forsyth County Sheriff Bobby Kimbrough Jr. said this change doesn't impact his office as much, but he recognizes the impact on small departments. In a statement, he wrote in part, "The new ruling will affect small agencies and offices while larger agencies will not be affected because we have the budgetary means to pay informants and conduct thorough investigations. Again smaller agencies will not have the ability to do such."
Randolph County's Sheriff's Office said, historically, it only uses a fraction of confiscated cash for these purposes, so it's not concerned about the change.
In Alamance County, the sheriff's office said it's never used this money to catch criminals, so it's not impacted by this change.
Some say they feel a bit blindsided by this decision, including Page.
According to Page, the most logical reason for this change is that other departments were misusing seized money but that departments who were following the rules, should not be looped in to this change.