Law enforcement took more stuff from people than burglars did last year (2015)
I detest civil forfeiture, but this is clickbait. The burglary figure is only reported theft. Also, the actual metric is value of goods, not number of takings. Obviously, assets in forfeiture are going to be bigger on average several times over than what a thief typically gets when rummaging a house in a 2 minute panic to get out before the authorities are signaled.EDIT: Also, if you read the article, it buries even one of the few redeeming aspects of civil forfeiture, payments to victims. If you buy a car and the police seize it because the VIN is tracked to a vehicle previously owned by a drug dealer who used it to ply his contraband but then sold it to pay his way as a fugitive, and once apprehended the car is then auctioned off and money is paid to the family of a victim he earlier had killed, that's part of a much bigger legal process. The remedy for the unfortunate person who bought the vehicle unawares in good faith is to go to his dealer and demand a refund or take him to court for misrepresenting the car, or if the paperwork looks good on the part of the dealer, he'll have to rely on his loss insurance.