HP overall. It's been
(and continues to be) abused for a long time, and police often resort to literal highway robbery simply to pad their budget and have more money to waste. In theory, I can see
some usefulness to it if its strictly controlled, but it isn't. It's a joke. They are using this to steal money from people, plain and simple. Not all of them, but enough are abusing it that make this 100% not worth having.
Criminal convictions should be required to permanently seize property, and limited seizures when relevant to certain kinds of cases should be allowed if the suspect is actually charged with a relevant crime and a case is actually pursued. But what they are doing now is completely absurd and the cops taking peoples stuff for pretty much no good reason / without cause should be fired and prosecuted for armed robbery.
Edit: Also, I'm sorry, but how is this even constitutional? By filing against the
property itself? What? Cases like
United States of America vs 10,000 US Dollars seems like a blatant end run around the 5th amendment and I don't get how this is still allowed.
This is really something conservatives should be able to get behind too
(which I believe they have, to at least a small degree). It makes a mockery of the constitution and what it says regarding this. Personally, I don't give a hoot if you think CF is "useful" and "necessary to fight crime" - if it is so necessary, amend the constitution.