Civil Asset Forfeiture: Property Seized by Law Enforcement
Civil asset forfeiture allows law enforcement to seize property suspected of being connected to criminal activity. Unlike criminal forfeiture, civil forfeiture does not require a criminal conviction. The property itself is the defendant. Data collected by the Institute for Justice as part of their Policing for Profit report.
This is property-level forfeiture data from 24 states that provided individual records, 1986–2019. Each row represents a single seized property: currency, vehicles, real property, or other assets. Search it. Filter it. See the patterns.
What do the proceeding types mean?
Civil and Civil Judicial = proceedings filed in court against the property, not the owner. Administrative = handled by the seizing agency without court involvement. Criminal = tied to a criminal prosecution.
Summary = expedited forfeiture, typically for lower-value property. Contested / Uncontested = whether the owner challenged the seizure.
What about conviction status?
97% of property-level records have no conviction status recorded. The absence of data is itself informative: most states do not systematically track whether a criminal conviction was associated with a forfeiture.
| Year | State | Property Type | Value | Proceeding | Conviction | Case No. |
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