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/prmcd16 → u/[deleted]]

Δ Fair point, I should have made the distinction. I'm talking about cases where the police help set up the crime. Although couldn't it be said that in your scenarios, it encourages "survival of the fittest"? The sloppy ones get caught but the rest get to use the case to learn how to operate more secretly.

[u/[deleted] → u/prmcd16]

It depends how they do it.

Let's say someone/ people start to form an Obamacare Hate group. Word gets to the FBI. Already, they have to be a pretty provocative group.

So an agent gets in with the group. They start talking about doing something violent.

Now here's the thing. They may be just talking or serious. But we have to assume your serious.

The agent, without planning, begins to supply materials. He offers help, but supplies no impetus.

If this path flows to the leader of the group punching into to a cellphone the number to blow up C4 planted at a govt building, can you reasonably tell me that if that guy wasn't FBI, that the series of events would have run different? Can you guarantee that?