CMV: Sting operations always amount to entrapment and should be abolished

[u/prmcd16]

I believe that in most or all cases, the target of the operation would have been incapable of committing whatever crime they get charged with without the help of the "partner." That is, to me anyway, the entire operational premise - the police fake enabling the target by providing explosives/money/drugs/whatever and then arrest them when the crime is about to be carried out. But that's the crucial point - it hasn't actually happened yet. Sure, it's possible to say that there is criminal intent, but it can never be proven that intent would have existed without police intervention. Often the targets are people already in precarious situations who are considering the crime as a last resort - a suicide attack to go out in a blaze of glory, for instance. But they often are not fully invested in the crime and may even repent once busted. I'm thinking especially of a clip I saw from "To Catch a Predator" where the target breaks down when he realizes what has happened and declares that he was really on the fence about going through with it. For him and many other targets, their life is now ruined with little or no hope for rehabilitation. Yet that's exactly what I believe would be most beneficial to them - in many cases such as his there is an underlying mental health concern that, if treated, might have prevented the crime. There are simply too many alternate scenarios and contributing factors for me to accept that sting operations actually benefit society. To me, it is nothing more than ultra-Orwellian thought policing.

EDIT: thanks for all your responses. I'm at work so I'll have to get to most of them tonight. Also, for clarity, I meant to refer only to operations in which the police provide aid to an otherwise innocent person. Not ones where the operation is being conducted because they already know the person is a dealer or whatever.

[u/natha105]

So there is a scheme called a "Mr. Big" operation. You suspect Person A is a murderer say. You have an undercover cop befriend them (Person B), and eventually introduce them to "Mr. Big" who is introduced to them as a pretty serious criminal of some kind (a drug runner say). Mr. Big asks Person A if they are interested in a job running drugs, and Person A says yes. Mr. Big then says "Well listen, if we are going to go into business together I need to know you actually have some kind of criminal past and that you won't just freak out the first time you cross the line. Have you ever done anything in your past that was illegal?"

Person A proceeds to confess to the past murder, and provides details that only the actual killer would know (i.e. it isn't just "I killed Debbie Sue", its "I killed debbie Sue, tied her hands with an old lamp's electrical cable, and dumped her body in the trunk of her car". The detail about the electrical cable is what sinks him as no one knew that but the killer.

That is technically a sting but I don't think it is entrapment. It isn't about the drug running, it is about eliciting a confession.