New Report: in Tough Times, Police Start Seizing a Lot More Stuff From People

By Christopher Ingraham
Washington Post
Nov. 11, 2015

Recent years have brought public scrutiny on a controversial law enforcement practice known as civil asset forfeiture, which lets police seize and keep cash and property from people who are never convicted -- and in many cases, even charged -- with wrongdoing. But despite a growing public outcry spurred in part by news investigations and congressional hearings, a new report Tuesday from the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil-liberties law firm, finds that the past decade has seen a "meteoric, exponential increase" in the use of the practice.

Read More