Drug seizures a boon to local police

Newspapers in an 11-county area that make up GateHouse’s Western Illinois Division have completed an in-depth news project looking at spending of money seized in drug busts.

Each city police department, sheriff’s office and state’s attorney’s office gets a share of the money. Newspapers, including this one, participating in the project gathered itemized expenditures out of those funds from 38 agencies in the 11 counties between Aug. 1, 2011, and July 31, 2012.

The counties include Fulton, Henderson, Henry, Knox, Livingston, McDonough, Mercer, Peoria, Tazewell, Warren and Woodford. (The county totals do not necessarily include all the police departments in that county. Chillicothe Police Department is the only agency included from Peoria County.)

View an 11-county data base of itemized drug seizure expenditures at http://databases.sj-r.com/drug-seizures/