CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURE, CRIME, AND POLICE INCENTIVES: EVIDENCE FROM THE COMPREHENSIVE CRIME CONTROL ACT OF 1984

Shawn Kantor, Carl Kitchens and Steven Pawlowski

Economic Inquiry, 2021, vol. 59, issue 1, 217-242

Abstract: The 1984 federal Comprehensive Crime Control Act (CCCA) included a provision that permitted local law enforcement agencies to acquire up to 80% of the proceeds derived from civil asset forfeitures obtained in joint operations with federal authorities. We investigate how this rule governing forfeited assets influenced crime and police incentives by taking advantage of pre‐existing differences in state‐level civil asset forfeiture law and the timing of the CCCA. We find that after the CCCA was enacted crime fell about 17% in places where the federal law allowed police to retain more of their seized assets than state law previously allowed. (JEL K42, K15, H76)

Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.12952

Related works:
Working Paper: Civil Asset Forfeiture, Crime, and Police Incentives: Evidence from the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984 (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:59:y:2021:i:1:p:217-242

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... s.aspx?ref=1465-7295

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Tim Salmon

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().