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Thanks to federal civil forfeiture laws, the Internal Revenue Service has seized millions of dollars from thousands of Americans’ bank accounts without proof of criminal wrongdoing. The IRS claimed the funds were illegally “structured”—deposited or withdrawn in small amounts to evade federal reporting requirements imposed on banks—and simply took the money.

Critics of civil forfeiture have long argued that allowing law enforcement to take property and pocket the proceeds creates incentives to put profits ahead of justice. Chapman University economist Bart J. Wilson and co-author Michael Preciado designed a cutting-edge experiment to see whether the rules of civil forfeiture in fact change behavior, and if so,…

Georgia law enforcement agencies routinely fail to publicly report their forfeiture activities, despite a state law and a successful lawsuit requiring disclosure.

From 2003 to 2010, forfeiture revenue in Minnesota jumped 75 percent, even as crime rates declined, and the average value of forfeited property was only $1,000.

Arizona law enforcement’s forfeiture revenue grew almost 400 percent from 2000 to 2011, with the largest share of proceeds spent on salaries and benefits.

Federal laws encourage local law enforcement to skirt state property rights protections to cash in on seized property.

Georgia has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country. But at least state law requires law enforcement to publicly report annual forfeiture proceeds and expenditures. Public reporting ought to help check abuse and prevent forfeiture funds from becoming off-the-books slush funds. Unfortunately, Forfeiting Accountability, like an earlier state audit, finds that these…

From 2001 to 2007, Texas law enforcement’s take from forfeited property tripled—and nearly a quarter was spent on salaries and overtime.