Federal government will no longer share seized assets with local police

In the wake of strong criticism of the federal civil asset forfeiture program, the United States Department of Justice has announced that it has ended its so-called "Equitable Sharing" program that allows local police to seize property from people and businesses using the permissive federal asset forfeiture procedures. (WaPo).

This program led to widespread abuses of the already questionable area of civil asset forfeiture because it created a monetary incentive for police to seize property. It's widespread use resulted in charges that law enforcement agencies were "policing for profit"--targeting people and companies in order to boost their departments' budgets, rather than focusing primarily on protecting the public from crime. The fact that the Feds took more from people in 2014 than burglars did (CheshireParker) suggests that these incentives have significantly altered law enforcement priorities at the federal level. And it is reasonable to expect that the same has happened at local police departments under the Equitable Sharing program.

USDOJ has indicated that the shutdown of the program is only temporary. So it remains to be seen what long term impact the move will have. Hopefully, it will curb the abuses of asset forfeiture programs--although it may spur a call by local police to expand state civil forfeiture laws.

If the government has seized property from you or your business, contact one of our experienced Raleigh asset forfeiture lawyers today.