Forfeiting Accountability

by Anthony Sanders, Erin Norman, Thomas F. Zahler (Illustrator)

Civil forfeiture threatens the property rights of all Americans. These laws allow the police to seize your home, car, cash or other property upon the mere suspicion that it has been used or involved in criminal activity. Georgia has some of the worst civil forfeiture laws in the country. But, in an attempt to at least ensure civil forfeiture is subject to public scrutiny, state law requires local law enforcement agencies to annually itemize and report all property obtained through forfeiture, and what they did with it, to their local governing authorities.Amazingly, many, perhaps most, local law enforcement agencies simply fail to issue these forfeiture reports. For these agencies, their forfeiture proceeds are “off budget” slush funds shielded from public view. The Atlanta Police Department, Fulton County Police Department, and Fulton County Sheriff all regularly fail to produce mandated forfeiture reports. For more info visit www.ij.org.

35 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2011

About the author

Anthony Sanders is the Galbreath Distinguished Scholar and Professor of Finance at The Ohio State University. During 1997 and 1998, he was director and head of asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities research at Deutsche Bank. He has published numerous articles in journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Journal of Business, and Journal of Fixed Income.