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The Trump administration is planning to ramp up the largely criticized civil asset forfeiture program.
On Monday, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the Department of Justice was on the verge of launching a new policy within the next week that would give the federal government more freedom to seize the personal property of drug offenders.
“We hope to issue this week a new directive on asset forfeiture—especially for drug traffickers,” Sessions told those in attendance of the National District Attorneys Association conference in Minneapolis. “With care and professionalism, we plan to develop policies to increase forfeitures. No criminal should be allowed to keep the proceeds of their crime. Adoptive forfeitures are appropriate, as is sharing with our partners.”
The updated position represents yet another reversal of an Obama-era policy pertaining to drugs. The current stance, which was put into place by former Attorney General Eric Holder, was designed to make it more difficult for asset forfeitures to take place without charging an offender for a crime.
Although the basic concept of the program is to strip valuable property from illegal…
