Federal Budget Squeeze To Make It Less Profitable For Law Enforcement To Seize Money & Property From People Who Haven't Been Charged w/ Crimes & Pocket The Loot Thru Civil Asset Forfeitures

Vox reports:

• Quietly, just a few days before Christmas, the federal government made a huge change to the way it cooperates with local police departments: it's no longer giving local police departments a share of money or property seized from people who haven't committed crimes.
  
  For decades, the federal government has basically given local police an easy loophole to let them keep a share of any assets they seize — rather than those assets going to other parts of state government, like education. Now, it's closing that loophole.
  
  The Department of Justice says that it's changing its asset forfeiture policies for budgetary reasons — which means that the change might be only temporary, and the government might even end up reimbursing local police departments for any assets they don't get a share of now. But for the moment, it's a big deal.
  
  How the federal government helps local police seize people's stuff
  
  After someone is convicted of a crime, the government agencies that arrested and convicted him are allowed to seize property related to that crime (such as a car that was used to commit a robbery, or money earned selling drugs). That's called criminal forfeiture, and that's not something most people have a problem with.
  
  But there's also a principle in the law, going all the way back to English common law, that says when property is involved in a crime, the government can start legal proceedings against the property itself for "participating" in criminal activity. The property doesn't get charged with a crime — instead, it's sued by the government, in a civil lawsuit. (Hence the name "civil asset forfeiture.")
  
  Many states guarantee that any money seized by police, or any profits from auctioning off forfeited goods, goes right back to the law enforcement agency. A few states say police don't get to use any of the property they take — instead, that money goes toward something like state schools. The rest split the difference ... [more]

For more, see The feds are making it a lot less profitable for local police to take your stuff (But they're not doing it out of moral conviction. It's just for temporary budgetary reasons).