Civil Asset Forfeiture and the Production of Tenuous Notions in Courts

Andrea Beltran-Lizarazo, Boston University

Amid calls to defund the police, civil forfeiture—an important source of law enforcement revenue—continues to be partially studied by punishment scholars. In its modern form, civil forfeiture is a legal innovation of the war on drugs allowing the government to seize property for its alleged connection to illegal activities without having to charge or convict the owner of a crime. Punishment scholars have classified civil forfeiture as another monetary sanction or as another third-party policing measure. In this analytical commentary, I argue that, unlike third-party policing measures, civil forfeiture does not function as a tool or threat to govern space. And that, unlike monetary sanctions, civil forfeiture can punish under the logic of risk, in which precautionary and harm prevention measures become enforceable. Furthermore, unlike monetary sanctions and forms of third-party policing, I propose that civil forfeiture is a battleground between the federal government and the states for resources and the power to punish.

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 Presented in Session 218. Crime, Justice and Historical Criminology