The Legislature finds and declares that it is a violation of the public policy of this state to permit a person who commits a crime to thereafter gain a monetary profit from the commission of that crime. Consequently, the Legislature finds that when a person convicted of a crime later profits as a result of the commission of that crime, such profits should be used to compensate those crime victims who were damaged as a result of the commission of the crime, as well as the taxpayers who paid for the prosecution or incarceration of the defendant, or both.
West Virginia Legal Code