The City of Vicksburg is poised, this week, to take advantage of the old adage “crime doesn’t pay.”

While the old saying holds true for criminals, the seized and forfeited proceeds of crime has paid off rather well for the city.

Since Jan 1, 2014, Assistant District Attorney Bert Carraway has successfully sought forfeiture of $29,117.40 — $21,310.40 in 2014 and $7,807 so far in 2015 — for the city as part of an often-overlooked role of the District Attorney’s Office. Sixty percent of that money goes into the city’s general fund, while the remaining 40 percent is split between the state and District Attorney’s Office.

This week, the pot of forfeited money could grow even larger. The city could reap a more than $10,000 windfall from an illegal dice game that was busted after an argument turned into a shooting.

If the forfeiture succeeds in municipal court, it would be the largest in the past few years. Because the payment would be attached to a municipal court sentencing order, the city would take the full amount.

So more correctly, crime doesn’t pay for the criminal, and the house always wins.

Civil forfeitures are designed to deter crime by taking away profits. On the outside selling drugs, for instance, looks like a lucrative illegal career full of tax-free money.

“They’re not contributing to the economy or society at all,” Carraway said.

Yet when the profits — cash, expensive cars and even houses — can be taken away at a moment’s notice, the deal doesn’t look nearly as sweet.

“Ninety-nine percent of those we deal with are forfeitures under the Uniform Controlled Substance Act,” Carraway said. “For the most part, we’re trying to take the profits from what litters Vicksburg and Warren County — $20 and $40 crack rocks.”

It’s true the vast majority of civil forfeitures are tiny sums. Most are just several hundred dollars, but they add up quickly. With the year less than half done, the DA’s office has won forfeiture on nearly $8,000 and thousands more are pending.

“For the size of Vicksburg and Warren County, that’s not an indication that drug dealers are running rampant. Some of these guys we see twice. It will happen to them twice in the same year and then we won’t see them again. It’s an indication that officers are doing their jobs,” Carraway said, and we agree.

Just down the road from Vicksburg, the city of Richland recently built a $4.1 million police station, a training center and purchased a fleet of Dodge Chargers with money from civil forfeiture. The mayor there says the cash comes from helping slow the drug trade along Interstate 20.

A sign outside the new station says “Richland Police Station Tearfully Donated by Drug Dealers.”

Vicksburg could do the same. Any drug money that travels to Richland along I-20 has to come through Vicksburg.

It would take time and effort and grant money to put officers exclusively on Interstate 20 but think of what we could do. When criminals want to take the gamble, the house always wins.