Executive Summary

Indiana’s civil forfeiture system allows the government to seize and permanently keep—or forfeit—cash, cars, homes, and other property without charging the owners with a crime, much less securing a conviction. Not only that, but the same police and prosecutors who seize and forfeit property are entitled to a substantial share of the proceeds, giving law enforcement agencies a strong financial incentive to pursue forfeiture.

Indiana’s civil forfeiture system is not unusual in these respects. However, it uniquely permits prosecutors to farm out forfeiture cases to private attorneys who get paid only if they successfully forfeit property. This contingency-fee arrangement gives these private prosecutors a personal financial stake in forfeiting property and has earned the ire of legal scholars and reform advocates alike for creating a conflict of interest.

Recognizing the risks posed by forfeiture, Indiana legislators in 2015 passed a law requiring prosecutors—including private prosecutors working on contingency—to report all forfeiture cases. The goal was to give lawmakers a clear view of how forfeiture works in practice. In reality, as this study shows, Indiana’s forfeiture reporting fails to accomplish this goal. Instead of providing transparency and accountability, it delivers incomplete, inaccurate, and misleading information—in short, bad data.

To assess whether prosecutors reported forfeiture cases as required, I compared the cases they reported with a database of court records. Then, to test the accuracy of reported information, I compared details in prosecutors’ reports to those in court records for a random sample of reported cases. The results were alarming.

First, many cases go unreported. Between 2016 and 2021, nearly 30% of forfeiture cases in Indiana were not reported at all. These missing cases involved 144 vehicles, more than $6.2 million in cash forfeited under state law, and another $3.8 million in currency transferred to the federal government for forfeiture. The problem was worse in counties that use contingency-fee prosecutors, which accounted for nearly three-quarters of all unreported cases.

Second, when cases are reported, the data are riddled with errors. In a random sample of 415 reported cases from 2019 to 2023, about two-thirds contained at least one error when compared to court documents. Common errors included misreporting whether property was returned to its owner, whether a case was settled, and the amounts forfeited and disbursed to various agencies.

These problems call into question the entire forfeiture reporting enterprise in Indiana. Moreover, a deep dive into the sampled cases raises serious concerns about how forfeiture works in the state. There is good reason to worry that innocent people are being swept up in the state’s confusing forfeiture system and losing property simply because they cannot afford to fight the government. Not only were people more likely to walk away when less money was at stake, but when people did contest forfeiture, prosecutors usually settled, giving back some or even all of their cash or other property. These findings suggest that forfeiture in Indiana is less about targeting criminals than raising revenue.

In short, Indiana’s forfeiture reporting system does not deliver the transparency lawmakers sought. Instead, it distorts the reality of forfeiture in Indiana, misleads the public about how cases resolve, and masks the weakness of many cases. And all of this inhibits the ability of legislators to understand, hold accountable, and reform the state’s often criticized forfeiture system.

To restore integrity and protect Hoosiers’ rights, Indiana should adopt comprehensive reforms. As this study makes clear, lawmakers should insist on full transparency and accountability for all forfeiture activity. More fundamentally, Indiana should follow the examples of New Mexico and Maine by ending civil forfeiture and instead relying on criminal forfeiture. Until Indiana enacts real reforms, innocent owners will remain at risk—and lawmakers will continue to legislate in the dark.