The Effectiveness Of The Management Of Asset Forfeiture Programs At The Justice And Treasury Departments

" Both Justice and Treasury operate separate asset forfeiture programs that are designed to prevent and reduce crime through the seizure and forfeiture of assets that represent the proceeds of, or were used to facilitate, federal crimes. Annually, participating agencies within Justice and Treasury seize millions of dollars in assets as a result of their law enforcement activities. In fiscal year 2011, the combined value of assets in these two programs was about $9.4 billion. Beginning in 1988 and through 2003, Congress and GAO have called on Justice and Treasury to consolidate management activities between their programs. GAO was asked to assess the extent to which Justice and Treasury have assessed and acted on opportunities to coordinate or consolidate forfeiture property management activities since 2003 to reduce any duplication and achieve cost savings. GAO interviewed officials to determine actions under way or completed to consolidate their management activities. GAO also analyzed IT asset tracking systems functions and the geographic proximity of contracted facilities that store vehicles, vessels, and aircraft. "

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index

This report responds to your request that we review the Department of Justice's (Justice) fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan required by the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993 (GPRA) to assess agencies progress in achieving selected key outcomes that you identified as important mission areas for the agencies. 1 These are the same outcomes we addressed in our June 2000 report 2 on Justice s fiscal year 1999 performance report and fiscal year 2001 performance plan to provide a baseline by which to measure agencies performance from year to year. These selected key outcomes are less drug- and gang-related violence; reduced availability and/or use of illegal drugs; timely, consistent, fair, and high-quality services provided by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS); and U.S. borders secure from illegal immigration. As agreed, using the selected key outcomes for Justice as a framework, we (1) assessed the progress Justice has made in achieving these outcomes and the strategies the agency has in place to achieve them and (2) compared Justice s fiscal year 2000 performance report and fiscal year 2002 performance plan with the agency s prior year performance report and plan for these outcomes. Additionally, we agreed to analyze how Justice addressed the major management challenges, including the government wide high-risk areas of strategic human capital management and information security, that we and its Office of the Inspector General (OIG) identified. Appendix I provides detailed information on how Justice.