Ending Civil Asset Forfeiture in Illinois

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Civil asset forfeiture (CAF) is legalized larceny. It’s a process by which law enforcement can keep and profit off a citizen’s property like a car or cash after they seize it.

CAF does not require criminal charges and can happen solely on the suspicion that the property has been involved in criminal activity. CAF is a racial and economic justice issue hidden from public view. It strips people of basic due process rights as they represent themselves in civil courtrooms, and derails their daily lives. The property kept or auctioned goes almost entirely to pad law enforcement budgets while wealth is extracted from communities.

End Policing for Profit is a coalition that is advocating and organizing to end civil asset forfeiture in Illinois. We are working to promote data transparency and due process rights, remove profit incentives for seizures, and provide support for claimants along the way.

Our Missions

  • Short Term

    This year, we helped pass HB 1628 to increase reporting of essential CAF data and pave the way for future legislation towards full abolition of CAF. We will host community events with the dual purposes of education and building support for policy change.

  • Long Term

    We envision implementing state legislation that will remove profit incentives for seizures and ultimately end civil asset forfeiture in Illinois. On the road to this remedy we hope to mitigate harm to all litigants, especially people who go through pro se.

Our Working Groups

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    Data + Research

    This subgroup is working on interviewing people who have experiened CAF to report on the extended economic costs of seizure to individuals, families, and communities. We also work on courtwatching and other data collection and analysis.

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    Community Organizing

    This group is working on providing a platform for people to share their stories, provide education about CAF and its impacts, and raising general awareness to mobilize support the effort to end CAF.

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    Legislation + Advocacy

    We advocated for HB 1628 to increase reporting requirements so we can better tell our stories with data and make CAF more transparent. It has passed (!) and we look forward to its implementation and taking next steps.

Who We Are

  • Chicago Appleseed Center for Fair Courts

  • ACLU Illinois

  • Lucy Parsons Lab

  • Free 2 Move Coalition

  • Better Government Association

  • UIC Law School

  • StopShotSpotter Campaign

  • Fines and Fees Justice Center

  • Cabrini Green Legal Aid

  • Equity and Transformation

  • Institute for Justice

  • Asian Americans Advancing Justice

Data

Since CAF is not at all a transparent process in Illinois, we have struggled to collect information. Through FOIAs, individual court case scraping, and more, we’ve put together an archive of what we know. A directory is available in the Drive to make looking through the data easier.

Share your story

Share your story on Soapbox!

If the police have seized something from you, like a car or cash, that you either never got back, or had to go to court for, we want to know about it. If you’re up for it, please record a video describing your experience and the impact it had on you and your family. If you’d like another way to share your story, please reach out to Maya at msimkin@chicagoappleseed.org.

Participate in our collaborative study with Chicago Appleseed and UIC and get a $50 gift card.

Chicago Appleseed is conducting a research study alongside UIC Law, where we'll interview people for under an hour about their experiences having their property (like cars or cash) seized by police, and compensate them with $50 gift cards. This will help us figure out the larger economic consequences of forfeiture on individuals and families.

Screener: bit.ly/chicagocafstudy