Even as research shows forfeiture is not the essential crime-fighting tool proponents make it out to be, research suggests it is an important revenue-generating tool, particularly when economic conditions or other factors put pressure on law enforcement budgets. Research also suggests the ability to use civil forfeiture to self-fund may alter law enforcement behavior or, as Justice Sotomayor put it, forfeiture’s financial incentive may “influence which laws police enforce, how they enforce them, and who they enforce them against.” ¹

In fact, several studies have found a robust relationship between forfeiture revenue and fiscal stress. The two Kelly studies finding that forfeiture revenue was not related to police effectiveness or illicit drug use also found that forfeiture revenue was related to unemployment, a common proxy for economic health. ²  Specifically, a 1 percentage point increase in unemployment was associated with a statistically significant 9% to 12% increase in forfeiture activity as measured by proceeds. Likewise, another study found that forfeiture activity increases when governments provide larger subsidies for building sports facilities, leaving less money for other priorities. ³  Notably, each of these studies accounted for the possibility that agencies brought in more forfeiture revenue because they were fighting more crime. For example, the two Kelly studies found that a larger number of reported crimes was associated with less forfeiture revenue, though the relationship was not statistically significant.

These findings also align with those from research linking forfeiture activity to how easy and lucrative laws make forfeiture for law enforcement. As discussed above, multiple studies have shown state and local law enforcement pursue equitable sharing to circumvent state laws that constrain forfeiture activity or make it less rewarding. ⁴  Other studies have shown that seizing more property helps increase law enforcement agencies’ discretionary budgets and that many agencies depend on forfeiture revenue. ⁵

Critics have long warned that the ability to use forfeiture to self-fund may change law enforcement behavior. And, indeed, research supports this concern. In one study, the ratio of drug arrests relative to total arrests was higher in jurisdictions that permitted agencies to retain forfeiture proceeds. ⁶  In another, drug arrests of black and Hispanic people—and accompanying seizures of non-drug property, like cash—increased where agencies had a larger financial stake in forfeiture and when they faced a budget deficit. ⁷  And in IJ’s survey of Philadelphia forfeiture victims, many respondents reported having small amounts of cash seized from them, often for alleged minor drug offenses and often in minority and lower-income communities. ⁸  Taken together, these and other findings discussed above—such as the finding that the financial incentive may reduce police effectiveness—raise the concern that law enforcement agencies might prioritize activities like low-level drug enforcement that generate revenue to the neglect of broader public safety objectives.

Related, the financial incentive also encourages enforcement activities that target cash instead of contraband. In a classic study, a researcher served as a confidential informant for drug enforcement agents for a year, observing how decisions were often shaped by potential financial rewards. For example, the researcher brought two potential cases to an undercover agent: a full-time drug dealer with prior convictions who would sell the researcher a large volume of marijuana and a factory worker without a criminal record who wanted to buy a relatively small volume of marijuana to sell to people in his social circle. The agent chose to pursue the factory worker because selling drugs to him would immediately result in cash. Not only that, but he also owned a truck that could be seized. ⁹

In another example, two Tennessee drug task forces funded by forfeiture revenue fought a turf war over which one got to patrol the westbound lanes of I-40 outside Nashville. ¹⁰  Both wanted to patrol those lanes on the assumption that drugs tend to go from west to east and drug proceeds from east to west.