>...I didn't say it wasn't a problem, but 2010 is always chosen specifically because of Madoff. Madoff also shows why that burglary comparison is meaningless.
The article addresses this issue:
>..."In a given year, one or two high-dollar cases may produce unusually large amounts of money — with a portion going back to victims — thereby telling a noisy story of year-to-year activity levels," the Institute for Justice explains. A big chunk of that 2014 deposit, for instance, was the $1.7 billion Bernie Madoff judgment, most of which flowed back to the victims.
>For that reason, the net assets of the funds are usually seen as a more stable indicator — those numbers show how much money is left over in the funds each year after the federal government takes care of various obligations, like payments to victims. Since this number can reflect monies taken over multiple calendar years, it's less comparable to the annual burglary statistics.
Still, even this more stable indicator hit $4.5 billion in 2014, according to the Institute for Justice — higher again than the burglary losses that year.
>...Also burglaries are basically never justified, but sometimes civil forfeitures are justified.
Criminal forfeitures are done after someone has been convicted and are justified. Civil forfeitures on the other hand are done before anyone has been convicted and the victim doesn't get free legal representation and is assumed guilty until proven innocent. Police agencies have to be funded, but it shouldn't be done by stealing from the public.