Here are the states where police can still take money from innocent people

The states where police get away with making money off arrests.

(Image credit: iStock)

On Tuesday, Nebraska got rid of civil asset forfeiture, a controversial practice that allows police to confiscate people's money and stuff without ever charging them with a crime. Other states, however, aren't so lucky.

As this map from The Washington Post shows, Nebraska is just the tenth state to require a conviction for property confiscation — which means that in the other 40 states, police can still take money and property from innocent people.

If you're subject to civil asset forfeiture, it's often very difficult to get your cash or property returned, because you personally are not accused of anything, so you have no right to an attorney and limited legal recourse. And we're talking a lot of money: In 2014, for instance, police took more from Americans using civil asset forfeiture than actual burglars did.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.