Civil forfeiture has become a significant government intrusion in recent years. While it remains a viable instrument for federal agents enforcing customs laws and fighting international crime, misguided policies and misaligned incentives foster abuses and raise grave constitutional concerns.
Each year, federal and state forfeiture programs allow law enforcement to seize more than $3 billion in cash and property from thousands of people – often without ever charging them with a crime. There are also serious questions as to whether civil courts using lower burdens of proof are the appropriate means to enforce government anti-crime policies.
Civil forfeiture further jeopardizes the relationship between police and their communities when vulnerable residents who cannot afford to challenge small-value seizures are targeted. There are also questionable benefits when financially-stressed departments prioritize revenue-generating forfeitures over arrests, drug interdiction, and crime-fighting.
CEI is addressing these issues through its new Forfeiture Reform Initiative: engaging federal and state policymakers to implement much-needed reforms and educating the public about their constitutional rights to stop improper seizures in the first place.
No person should have to fear for their property while engaged in lawful activities or lose it without ever being convicted of a crime.
Featured Posts
Blog
Some thoughts on Constitution Day
As I drove into work today, it occurred to me: we so often take for granted the extraordinary power that the automobile gives us. Once…
Fox News
Federal judge rules that 156-year-old ban on at-home distilling is unconstitutional
Fox News cites CEI’s Devin Watkins and Dan Greenberg on Hobby Distillers Association v. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau et al: Devin Watkins,…
Blog
Sunshine in Wyoming’s civil forfeiture
Transparency in civil forfeiture took a small step forward last week when the Wyoming Liberty Group published its latest report. One difficulty in writing about…
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Op-Eds
Secretary Gale Norton: Roosevelt Republican?
Gale Norton, an individual who was once libertarian and who has long espoused a principled view of private property and the market, now…
Op-Eds
You Bastards: You Killed Bambi!
After recently watching Bambi, I worry that I may never again have an intelligent thought about man and nature. First we killed Bambi’s…
Op-Eds
Privatizing National Parks
Wonders never cease. China, once the poster child for socialist nonsense (remember the backyard steel furnaces?), seems determined to experiment with a wide…
Op-Eds
Clinton’s Legacy: Senate Dems Second-guess Bush for Second-guessing Clinton
Lieberman Op-Ed in National Review Online<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office” /> Senate Democrats are beginning to flex their majority muscles, and…
News Release
Land Grab Legislation Headed for Vote
Washington, DC, July 24, 2001 – The U.S. House Committee on Resources is expected to vote this week on a bill that would…
News Release
Environmental Experts Criticize Legislation that Threatens Private Landownership
Washington, DC, June 20, 2001 – The House Natural Resources Committee is today hearing testimony on a bill that would massively increase government…
Op-Eds
Midnight Madness — Washington Style: Lieberman SD Union Tribune Op-Ed
The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Press of Atlantic City They’re called midnight regulations — the flood of federal regulatory activity occurring in the closing…
Products
Midnight in the Garden of Regulatory Evil
From the December issue of CEI UpDate They’re called midnight regulations–the flood of federal regulatory activity occurring in the closing…
Study
Earth Report 2000: The State of the World’s Fisheries
Full Document Available in PDF…
News Release
NEW CEI BOOK: Free Market Environmental Reader Now Available
Ecology, Liberty & Property: A Free Market Environmental Reader Jonathan H. Adler, Editor Publication Date: Spring 2000Price: $16.95ISBN #1-889865-02-8 Click here to order Ecology, Liberty…
Study
Ecology, Liberty & Property
Ecology, Liberty & Property: A Free Market Environmental Reader Publication Date: Spring 2000Price: $16.95ISBN #1-889865-02-8 Are free markets and environmental protection compatible? Is…
Op-Eds
Introduction to ‘Ecology, Liberty, and Property’
The book "Ecology, Liberty, and Property: A Free Market Environmental Reader," edited by Jonathan H. Adler, was published by the Competitive Enterprise Institute in 2000.
News Release
House Passes Massive Land-Grab Bill: Majority of Republicans Abandon Private Property and Balanced Budget for Pork
Washington, D.C., May 11, 2000 – In the same week the national laboratories at Los Alamos were evacuated due to out-of-control wildfire on government…
News Release
David Riggs Joins CEI
Washington, D.C., June 8, 1999 – The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) is pleased to welcome economist and policy analyst David Riggs to its environment…
News Release
Fact And Fiction On “Smart Growth” & “Urban Sprawl”
Vice President Al Gore and environmental activists argue that suburban development, pejoratively called “urban sprawl,” is destroying the environment. Loss of farmland and open…
News Release
Media Advisory: Earth Day Experts
Most Americans want a clean environment. That is no surprise. What surprises traditional environmental activists is that most people don’t support extensive federal regulation.
News Release
Pro-Environment, Not Pro-EPA: Americans want environmental protection, but not more federal regulation
America’s support for strong environmental protection does not translate into strong support for heavy-handed federal regulation. CEI’s just released National Environmental Survey demonstrates that…
News Release
Pro-Environment, Not Pro-EPA: Americans want environmental protection, but not more federal regulation
America’s support for strong environmental protection does not translate into strong support for heavy-handed federal regulation. CEI’s just released National Environmental Survey demonstrates that…
Study
Saving Fisheries without Property Rights: “Surgery with a Baseball Bat”
View Full Document as PDF The collapse of the once-rich fisheries off the coast of New England is testimony to the…
Study
And Justice for All: The State Experience with Property Rights Legislation
Full Document Available in PDF The ownership…
Study
Property Owners Deserve Equal Access To Justice
The Bill of Rights to the United States Constitution was enacted to secure the rights of Americans. It enumerates several rights that may not…
News Release
Enlightened Green Alternative To Earth Day Blues
Washington, DC, April 17, 1998 —Saving the planet is a nice idea, but the focus on Earth Day has for too long been on…
Study
Electric Avenues: Why “Open Access” Can’t Compete
Full Document Available in PDF The regulation of electricity markets…
Study
A Texas-Sized Land-Use Plan: The Central Texas Rare Species Conservation Plan
The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPW) is developing a new program known as “the Central Texas Rare Species Conservation Plan.” The plan is…
Products
Home Not Alone – Part Deux
On February 23 the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case of Ziman v. New York State, ending a regulatory saga so long-running…
News Release
Supreme Court Turns Down Suit On New York Rent Control
Washington, DC, February 23, 1998 — The United States Supreme Court today declined to hear a constitutional attack on New York State’s restriction of…
News Release
Institute Attacks Whitman Call For State Control of Open Space
Washington, DC, January 21, 1998 — The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) blasted Governor Christie Todd Whitman’s (R-NJ) plan to lock up one million acres…
Products
Another Take On Takings
Imagine a federal law that prohibits people from “taking” something. No, it’s not the U.S. Constitution’s forgotten Takings Clause, which states, “nor shall…
News Release
International Land Designations Threaten Sovereignty, Usurp Powers Of Congress
WASHINGTON, DC June 3, 1997 – A proliferation of international treaties aimed at protecting the “global environment” are involving the United Nations increasingly in…
Study
The Yellowstone Affair: Environmental Protection, International Treaties, and National Sovereignty
Full study available in pdf format Environmental regulation has gone international in recent decades. There has been a proliferation of treaties, conventions, and protocols aimed…
News Release
CEI Joins Large Congressional Coalition to End United Nations Entitlement
Announcing its support of a growing coalition to rethink United Nations treaties, conferences and global taxation proposals in general and the U.S. “debt” to the…
Study
How To Reform Grazing Policy
Full Document Available in PDF Property rights have been recognized since ancient times as an essential element of a well ordered society.
Products
Message From the President: Hoarding the Nation’s Wealth
President Clinton's presidential order to drive man and his works from much of southern Utah makes political sense, but makes for very bad policy.
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Green but Anti-Government
Numerous opinion surveys have documented widespread public support for environmental protection. Polls routinely find that over 70 percent of Americans characterize themselves as environmentalists…
Study
Private Reef Building in Alabama and Florida
Full Document Available in PDF Fishing communities around the world…
Study
Oysters and Willapa Bay
Contents: Oysters Oysters and Willapa Bay Eliminating the Tragedy of the Commons Experimentation and Innovation Fighting for Water…
Study
Resolving the Tragedy of the Commons by Creating Private Property Rights in Wildlife
Full Document Available in PDF During…
Study
Appendix: Are Property Rights Popular?
Full Document Available in PDF Conflicting sides in the property rights debate claim popular…
Study
Home Not Alone: New York’s War on Landlords
Full Document Available in PDF The key to rent…
Study
Property Rights Fact and Fiction
Full Document Available in PDF The rise of property rights activism was…
Study
Property Wrongs: The Growth of Federal Land-Use Control
Full Document Available in PDF In the spring of…
Study
Public vs. Private Land Management: Which is Better for the Environment
Full Document Available in PDF The…
Study
Putting People Last: Endangered Species vs. People
Full Document Available in PDF Law-abiding, workaday Americans all across…
Study
The Property Rights Reader
Full Document Available in PDF The rise of property rights activism is one of the untold…
Op-Eds
The Market and Nature
(Originally appeared in The Freeman, September 1993) Many environmentalists are dissatisfied with the environmental record of free economies. Capitalism, it is claimed, is…
Op-Eds
Environmental Policy at the Crossroads
Full Chapter Available in PDF Format Executive Summary It has always been with us, and…
Op-Eds
Environmental Protection: Is there a Better Way
Earth Day 1990-22 April—marks twenty years since the first Earth Day and since the modern environmental movement became a force for politicians to reckon with.
Op-Eds
Is Rent Control’s Lease Over?
In 1921, the Supreme Court issued its finst rent control decision. In a 5-4 opinion by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, the Court upheld a…
