New York Earns “D” In “Policing for Profit” Report

Arlington, Va.—It’s called policing for profit and it’s happening all across America.  New York’s laws and practices make it among the worst abusers in the nation.

Under a practice called “civil forfeiture,” police and prosecutors’ offices seize private property—often without ever charging the owners with a crime, much less convicting them of one—then keep or sell what they’ve taken and use the profits to fund their budgets.  And considering law enforcement officials in most states don’t report the value of what they collect or how that bounty is spent, the issue raises serious questions about both government transparency and accountability.

Under state and federal civil asset forfeiture laws, law enforcement agencies can seize and keep property suspected of involvement in criminal activity.  Unlike criminal asset forfeiture, however, with civil forfeiture, a property owner need not be found guilty of a crime—or even charged—to permanently lose her cash, car, home or other property.

According to the Institute for Justice—whose fight against eminent domain abuse raised that issue to national prominence—civil asset forfeiture is one of the worst abuses of property rights in our nation today.  The Institute for Justice today released a first-of-its-kind national study on civil forfeiture abuse.  The report—Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture (http://www.ij.org/PolicingForProfitPDF)—is the most comprehensive national study to examine the use and abuse of civil asset forfeiture and the first study to grade the civil forfeiture laws of all 50 states and the federal government.  The report finds, not surprisingly, that by giving law enforcement a direct financial incentive in pursuing forfeitures and stacking the legal deck against property owners, most state and federal laws encourage policing for profit rather than seeking the neutral administration of justice.  (For additional resources on this report, visit:  http://www.ij.org/PolicingForProfit.  For a brief video on this topic, visit:  www.ij.org/Forfeiture.)

Laws Stacked Against Property Owners
The report demonstrates that legal procedures make civil forfeiture relatively easy for most governments and difficult for many property owners to fight.  The vast majority of states and the federal government use a standard of proof—what is needed to successfully prosecute a forfeiture action—lower than the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard required to prove an individual was guilty of the criminal activity that supposedly justified the taking of his property.  Given that situation, it is not surprising that upwards of 80 percent of forfeitures at the federal level occur absent a prosecution.

“Americans are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty, but civil forfeiture turns that principle on its head,” said Institute for Justice Senior Attorney Scott Bullock, a co-author of the report.  “With civil forfeiture, your property is guilty until you prove it innocent.”

Grading Forfeiture Laws and How Government Evades Them
In Policing for Profit, IJ grades each state on its forfeiture laws and other measures of abuse.  Only three states (Maine, North Dakota and Vermont) earned a grade of B or better.

Federal forfeiture law makes the problem worse with so-called “equitable sharing.”  Under these arrangements, state officials can hand over forfeiture prosecutions to the federal government and then receive up to 80 percent of the proceeds—even when state law bans or limits the profit incentive.  Equitable sharing payments to states have nearly doubled from 2000 to 2008, from a little more than $200 million to $400 million.

Policing for Profit was co-authored by IJ’s Scott Bullock and criminal justice researchers Drs. Marian Williams and Jefferson Holcomb of Appalachian State University and Tomislav Kovandzic of the University of Texas at Dallas.  The university professors examined equitable sharing data and found clear evidence that law enforcement is acting in pursuit of profit.  When state laws make forfeiture harder and less profitable, state and local law enforcement engages in more equitable sharing to circumvent the state laws.

New York’s Law & Practices
New York earned among the worst grades in the nation for its civil forfeiture laws and practices according to IJ’s rankings.  New York law provides some protection for property owners caught up in civil forfeiture, but the state’s law enforcement agencies are among the nation’s most aggressive in pursuing equitable sharing with the federal government.  Under New York civil forfeiture law, the government’s standard of proof to conduct a forfeiture depends on the property being pursued.  For real property that was used as an instrumentality of the crime, the government must prove by clear and convincing evidence that the property is related to the crime and can be forfeited.  For other property, the government only needs to show by a preponderance of the evidence that the assets were the instrumentality or proceeds of the crime.  Moreover, the property owner bears the burden in innocent owner claims.  Law enforcement may keep up to 60 percent of the proceeds seized.  The state received more than $237 million through equitable sharing between 2000 and 2008.   Although New York “reformed” its asset forfeiture regime in 1990, it actually further encroached on the property rights of its citizens as a result of the reform.  For example, money located near controlled substances is now presumptively forfeitable—in effect, presumed guilty.  The property owner has a significant burden placed on him to overcome this presumption.  For analysis of New York’s ranking, visit:  http://www.ij.org/PolicingForProfit/NY.

To end policing for profit, the Institute for Justice recommends that, first, law enforcement should be required to convict people before taking their property.  Law enforcement agencies could still prosecute criminals and forfeit their ill-gotten possessions—but the rights of innocent property owners would be protected.  Second, police and prosecutors shouldn’t be paid on commission.  To end the perverse profit incentive, forfeiture revenue must be placed in a neutral fund, like a state’s general fund.  It should also be tracked and reported so law enforcement is held publicly accountable.  Finally, equitable sharing must be abolished to ensure that when states act to limit forfeiture abuse, law enforcement cannot evade the new rules and continue pocketing forfeiture money.