How do you understand the original intent? > Civil forfeiture allows police to seize — and then keep or sell — any property they allege is involved in a crime.

How do you understand the original intent? > Civil forfeiture allows police to seize — and then keep or sell — any property they allege is involved in a crime. Owners need not ever be arrested or convicted of a crime for their cash, cars, or even real estate to be taken away permanently by the government. --[1] They don't need to prove or even charge you to take property from you. It's robbery. The law needs to require a warrant issued by a judge to sieze the property. The property siezed needs to be stored as evidence, kept separate from other budget items in law enforcement organizations so that it cannot be used to cover expenditures (through auction or otherwise), be under the same sort of provisions as indefinitely holding individuals without charges, be returned in total when charges are not brought to trial or when a trial results in an acquittal, and the material should be subject to destruction after a guilty verdict and appeals are exhausted. Basically, the siezing organization shouldn't be able to use the material proceeds as part of the organizations' operating budgets at any time unless the material is voluntarily submitted by the convicted parties in lieu of levied fines after a conviction. It is evidence, not a funding source. I'm not saying that the government should not be able to take illegitimately gained property from convicted criminals; but that the incentive to do so for material gains by the government without conviction is rife with the potential for abuse as things currently stand. [1] https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-police/asset-forfeiture-abuse#:~:text=Civil%20forfeiture%20allows%20police%20to,away%20permanently%20by%20the%20government https://www.aclu.org/issues/criminal-law-reform/reforming-po....