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by BillTheCat 3866 days ago
Is there any reason, aside from the $1.7 billion from Bernie Madoff, as to why the amount seized has risen so much in the last 10 years?

Was there some case that made it much easier for law enforcement to seize assets this way?
4 comments
analyst74 3866 days ago
Based on my casual observation of this issue, the biggest problem I believe is allowing police forces to benefit directly from what they seize.

Maybe it just doesn't affect regular folks that much, so there is not much uproar from the voting body.

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bhauer 3866 days ago
Seems like gradual introduction of new asset forfeiture laws. See IJ's video and information:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hytkAaoF2k

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhAa2vep1z0

http://ij.org/report/policing-for-profit/

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bingo_the_dog 3866 days ago
Perhaps a better question would be "What is the median forfeiture amount?". Without additional data points or underlying explanation, this article is nothing but click-bait.
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elipsey 3866 days ago
I agree that it would be nice to have more data. It might be hard to get "big picture" data for this. I would imagine that police deptments are not incentivized to publish details in a convenient, highly visible, summarized form.

Forbes says $1250 was avg. seized property value in MN.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/instituteforjustice/2014/09/12/a...

This link claims that the avg. cash seizure amount in Phillidelphia from 2010 to present was $550:

http://ij.org/action-post/seize-first-ask-questions-later-ph...

These hardly sound like the sort "untouchable" organized crime cases that these programs were touted to address.

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balls187 3866 days ago
Wild guess: Only because the data shown (in the article) goes back 10 years. As Civil Forfeitures started as part of the War on Drugs, I suspect it's been rising since the 1980's.

The revenue from Civil Forfeitures are used to offset the recent (decade+?) decline in funding that local governments have.

A recent segment on Last Week Tonite[1] on Civil Forfeiture highlighted local police using it as a way to shore up their coffers.

Edited to add: Youtube Link

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEpZWGgJks

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