Civil asset forfeiture strikes at the heart of property rights. Authorities simply seize private property without all the messiness of convicting someone of a crime. It’s blatantly unconstitutional and it shouldn’t happen, but it does. What’s worse, many state governments offer little to no information to the public about what they’re doing with those ill-gotten gains.
A new report and video from the Institute for Justice illustrates the case of Georgia quite well. The video was produced by IJ’s multitalented Isaac Reese.
IJ’s Scott Bullock participated in a lively discussion of their “Policing for Profit” (PDF) report last April here at Cato.
