...the police hate competition. Or so the bumper sticker goes. Civil asset forfeiture laws in the US are designed to deny the proceeds of crime from being used by those that benefited from it, which certainly makes sense. Yet how are those laws actually being used?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2014/10/11/cash-seizures-fuel-police-spending/Quote
Of the nearly $2.5 billion in spending reported in the forms, 81 percent came from cash and property seizures in which no indictment was filed, according to an analysis by The Post. Owners must prove that their money or property was acquired legally in order to get it back.
Anecdotes abound about home and business owners having their property seized, and the connection to crime is absolutely vacuous, but often goes unchallenged legally because the costs of fighting the state is more expensive than letting the police get away with it.
I say it's time for the practice to go.