[wfjackson]

The practice originally seemed to be in place to give discretion to officer to deal with druglords and people like that since proving everything is court is very hard, but since the incentives are all wrong(departments keep the proceeds), it seems to be quite abused.

A quick fix would be to use the proceeds for charity or to pay down the national debt. That way the incentives are atleast reduced somewhat.

[yebyen]

I read in a comment on a related article yesterday that this was tried in Utah, in fact here's the link[1], tldr it was not successful at all.

The operative question would seem to be, how does one write a blank check to law enforcement to seize property with no judicial oversight or lawful reason required, but then make them promise by law to give it away rather than simply use it for their own personal/departmental reasons?

If you want to empower someone to be a thug and take peoples stuff, you have to recognize that Robin Hood was actually a work of fiction and consider that maybe nobody is going to actually do that. Apparently in Utah, everyone ignored the new law -- police, prosecutors, judges, the press, and even the voting public who passed the original ballot initiative, failed to hold anyone to account when the next election time came around.

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8582659