Under Arizona, law police can seize your car or other property, sell it and use the proceeds to fund agency budgets - including paying personnel salaries - all without so much as charging you with a crime.

This is called "civil forfeiture," a legal fiction that allows law enforcement to charge property with a crime.

Unlike criminal forfeiture, in which property is taken away after its owner has been found guilty in a court of law, with civil forfeiture, owners need not be convicted of any crime to lose homes, cars, cash or other property.

According to a new national report published by the Institute for Justice, "Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture," Arizona has some of the nation's worst civil-forfeiture laws, earning a grade of D-. This should come as no surprise. A highly publicized report I co-authored six years ago and published by the Goldwater Institute came to the same conclusion, but the Legislature has taken no significant action to curb forfeiture abuse.

Arizona law makes civil forfeiture incredibly easy and profitable for law enforcement. Officers can seize your property merely by claiming they have probable cause to believe it was used in an illegal activity. Perhaps the officer thinks you are carrying a larger-than-normal amount of cash or that your travel pattern is "suspicious." To then forfeit - and permanently keep - your property, prosecutors need merely show that it is more probable than not that your property is connected to a crime. This is a far cry from proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, as in a criminal trial.

If you protest that you are innocent because, for example, you did not know the property was being used illegally, you must prove your innocence in court to get your property back. In other words, Arizona treats property owners as guilty until proved innocent. Proving your innocence can be an expensive proposition, usually requiring you to hire an attorney. And you must act quickly or you'll lose your rights to protect your rights.

Worst of all, the law allows police and prosecutors to keep 100 percent of the proceeds to fund their own agency budgets.

By giving law enforcement a direct financial stake in forfeiture efforts, Arizona's laws encourage policing for profit, not justice. In fact, in "Policing for Profit," independent criminal-justice researchers examined national forfeiture data and concluded that law-enforcement agencies respond to incentives in state and federal law by engaging in forfeiture more under laws that make it easier and more profitable.

To protect the rights of innocent citizens, legislators should reform Arizona's forfeiture laws. First, police and prosecutors must be required to obtain a conviction before taking away someone's property. This would restore the principle that you and your property are innocent until proved guilty.

Second, police and prosecutors should not be paid on commission. The Legislature must remove the direct-profit incentive in forfeiture efforts by directing forfeited funds to the state general fund or another neutral fund, not to law-enforcement coffers.

Finally, Arizona should forbid state and local agencies from participating in a practice called equitable sharing, in which state and local police turn property over to federal agents for forfeiture and then split the proceeds.

Tim Keller is executive director of the Institute for Justice's Arizona Chapter and co-author of the 2004 report "Policing and Prosecuting for Profit: Arizona's Civil Asset Forfeiture Laws Violate Basic Due Process Protections."