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Gerald and Royetta Ostipow had no idea what civil asset forfeiture was until sheriff’s deputies arrived at their farm in rural Michigan and seized and then sold the couple’s property. The Ostipows were required to provide a $150,000 cash bond before they could begin the legal proceedings to contest the forfeiture and get their property back. But they couldn’t afford to.

An appeals court later overturned the Ostipow’s hefty bond requirement, a move the legislature has now followed in a reform signed into law in January. But the ruling didn’t stop the nightmare for the couple who were never charged with a crime. They still had to win a court case seeking the return of hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of property taken from the Ostipow’s rural Michigan home, including a cherished classic car.

Eventually, an appeals court found that the property was wrongly forfeited. But it was too later to recover the car. With the odometer mysteriously bearing an additional 56,000 miles, police had already sold the car and spent the proceeds.

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Mass seizures of private property by law enforcement agencies aren’t a problem particular to Michigan. The U.S. Department of Justice received $2.01 billionin forfeited items in 2013, and since 2008 local and state law enforcement nationwide has raked in some $3 billion in forfeitures through the federal “equitable sharing” program. In Michigan alone, more than $270 million has been seized from citizens since 2001 — and that’s only what’s been reported.

Michigan's January reforms removing the bond requirement from the books has let Michigan join most other states, but there is still more to do. For example, our state still doesn't require police to wait until a defendant is proven guilty of a crime before depriving them — often permanently — of their cash, cars, homes or other property. Ohio became the 12th state to have such a policy when it changed its law last year.

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Every state should join Nebraska and New Mexico in repealing civil forfeiture altogether, allowing only a criminal court to transfer personal property to the government, and only after the owner of the property has been convicted of a crime. But if states don’t do that, legislatures across the country should at least remove the financial incentive for police departments to use forfeiture to pad their budgets.

Most states allow law enforcement to keep at least 45% of the value of forfeited property, while in Michigan police get to keep up to 100%. Anecdotal evidence suggests that allowing departments to keep forfeiture proceeds may tempt them to use the funds unwisely. For example, consider a 2015 scandal in Romulus, Michigan, where police officers used funds forfeited from illicit drug and prostitution stings to pay for ...  illicit drugs and prostitutes.

Criminals should not get to keep money, property or other ill-gotten gains from illegal activity. But criminals aren't criminals until they have been convicted. That's what “innocent until proven guilty” means.

Derek Draplin is a reporter for Michigan Capitol Confidential and Kahryn Riley is a policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, Mich.

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