On both the state and federal levels, forfeiture provides a perverse incentive for officers to conduct searches without compelling evidence of a crime — and to pressure people to give up property, because police departments and other agencies get to keep a cut of the seized property. As the Institute for Justice has documented, state and federal law enforcement agencies seize billions of dollars in assets every year, most of which they keep to fund their own operations. Among those forfeitures are countless stories of innocent people who lost their hard-earned money and spent years fighting to win it back — often unsuccessfully.
Making the case for a new push for federal forfeiture reforms
The Washington Post has this new editorial advocating for federal legislative forfeiture reform headlined “The DEA shows why officers cannot police themselves when seizing assets: A DOJ inspector general report underscores the need for reforming civil forfeiture practices.” I recommend the full piece, and here is how it concludes (with links from the original):
Unsurprisingly, the practice has earned bipartisan outrage. Thirty-seven states and D.C. have already passed legislation to reform their own forfeiture laws, and last year the House Judiciary Committee unanimously voted to advance a bill that would direct revenue from forfeitures to the federal government’s general fund rather than to law enforcement agencies. That legislation would also eliminate “equitable sharing,” which allows state and local police to sidestep state limits on civil forfeitures by working with federal agencies, which then share a portion of any seized assets. Frustratingly, that bill never made it to a floor vote.
The purpose of such reforms is not to eradicate the practice; it is to ensure that officers see it as a tool to get the bad guys, not as a way to pad their budgets. By taking away the profit motive, agencies such as the DEA might finally exercise their forfeiture powers with due caution.