Cars, guns, cash, PlayStations, a forklift, and even a statue of a Mexican folk saint: Illinois police raked in an estimated $72 million-worth of seized property over the past two years, public records obtained by the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union show.
Illinois has one of the more aggressive asset forfeiture programs in the country. In April, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a lead editorial calling on the state to reform the program. The Institute for Justice, a libertarian public-interest law firm, gave the state's asset forfeiture laws a "D-" grade for their lax property owner protections, low standards of evidence and expensive bond requirements to challenge seizures.
The ACLU records cover only two years, but they provide a wide-angle snapshot of what kind of property Illinois police seized, how much and where the proceeds flowed. They are also rare among records on asset forfeiture because they show the disposition of seized property...
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http://reason.com/archives/2016/05/26/illinois-racks-up-millions-in-property-s
