| Make Your Own Criminal – It's So Much Easier than Chasing the Real Ones |
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| Written by Tiffany Sanders |
| Thursday, 15 May 2008 03:03 |
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Law enforcement seems, on the surface, like a pretty straightforward proposition. The legislature enacts laws designed to preserve peace and order in society and make sure that people don't wander off with each other's cars and such, and police and prosecutors chase down the folks who violate those laws and punish them accordingly. In theory. Recently, a disturbing trend is developing across the country: law enforcement agencies working hard not to catch criminals, but to create them. And it isn't as if there's a shortage of real lawbreakers out there to catch. In the state of Arizona alone, there are 59,000 unserved felony warrants. That's 59,000 cases in which crimes were committed, suspects were identified, and no one ever got around to arresting them. That's just felonies, and just one state. So you'd think that law enforcement officers would have enough to do. As it turns out, though, they've decided to take an easier approach to criminal prosecution—a sort of one-stop-shopping that allows them to create a criminal where none previously existed, arrest him or her on the spot and then, more often than not, wrestle a guilty plea out of the terrified "criminal" who never expected to find himself in this situation. Some recent examples: • In 2006, New York police left purses and wallets in department stores, watching to see whether shoppers picked them up and then arresting those who did. After a judge noted that people finding lost property had ten days to turn it in and dismissed the cases, additional instructions were added to the prosecution's handbook and the next year officers were back out in the stores and on the subway, leaving purses and wallets containing high-limit credit cards so that they could charge would-be thieves (or good Samaritans) with felonies this time around. They also planted iPods, bags containing game systems, and other expensive-but-portable items. • A Chicago man was arrested for soliciting a prostitute after an undercover policewoman flagged him down and he stopped thinking that she was having car trouble and needed assistance. This might have come down to a he said/she said situation and ended in the man's conviction except for one lucky break: his wife and adult daughter were in the car with him at the time, and it was actually his wife who initially spotted the woman and thought she might be in trouble. The debate may rage as to whether those arrested in these stings are innocent victims enticed by law enforcement or guilty parties who chose to act illegally, regardless of the fact that the circumstances were orchestrated. The bigger question, though, is whether testing people on the subway and walking through department stores and even driving down the street in their vehicles is the best use of taxpayer funds and law enforcement time and energy. Neither New York nor Chicago is running short on crime, nor on real-life criminals who act without any manufactured temptation. Perhaps these officers would do better to focus on crime prevention than crime creation. |