American Cops Bait Cars.

[Just-Jude]

Are they trying to turn innocent people into criminals? Would this be allowed in the UK?

[ludwig]

// exploiting someone's vulnerability //

I suppose having a predeliction for smashing into cars and stealing other people's things does make you vulnerable to prosecution. It's a vulnerability I can't find much sympathy for though.

I think it's often a case as I said before that a crimewave in a given area is down to a very small number of individuals, perhaps just one. The police often know who it is, but can't get the evidence.

This is a good way of exploiting their greed and stupidity to catch them in the act and improve the lives of the majority of people in the locality.

I suspect it's also the reason why it's still a useful tactic and lawyers haven't been able to eliminate it with the 'entrapment' argument. ie the people being caught are habitual criminals and repeat offenders, so it can't be argued so easily that they were steered off the straight and narrow by underhand police tactics.

[FredPuli43]

Think not, jake. The defendant has no defence (R vSang). The best he can hope for is that the prosecution will be stayed, the judge directing that it should have been brought under the principles in R v Loosely. The police should not indulge in wholesale virtue testing without reason. But the use of pro-active techniques is needed more in some circumstances than others; the secrecy and difficulty of detection and the manner with which the crime is carried on being relevant considerations. If the police are creating crime artificially that is improper, but if they do no more than present the defendant with an opportunity to commit a crime it is not. [R v Loosely]

Car theft, or theft from cars, is not easy to detect and is common. In such a case as this, the police are doing no more than giving an opportunity. It matters not whether the defendant has a vulnerability or whether the car is left in a deprived area of town. Indeed, such areas are likely to have such thefts. Any vulnerability of the defendant may go to mitigation.

[LazyGun]

I think Entrapment is a very different animal from Temptation. Entrapment would be an escalation of that concept. Entrapment would be, say an undercover police officer encouraging youths to go break into a car that they know someone has left the keys in.

[Svejk]

If you can afford a good lawyer its entrapment. (John DeLorean) if you can't its tough.
But hey-ho, its hardly a revelation that lifes not fair.

[ludwig]

Jewellers have been trying to turn innocent people into criminals for years.

They blatantly leave gold rings, diamonds, and expensive watches on full display in their windows which sometimes leads the vulnerable to organise armed robberies.

[Bazile]

For those asking for a link - there is no link as such - this is a tv crime reality series available over here on one of the satelite channels .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bait_Car_(TV_series)

I must admit that i like watching this programme , just to hear the excuses that the people taking the bait car comes up with .

For example - '' this woman came out of the car and told me to take it ''
'' i was just moving it to a safe place ''

What would be intreresting to know is whether or not the initiative has had any reduction in the car theft figures , in the areas of high vehicle thefts , where it operates .

I suspect the authorities hope is that people will become aware of the operation of the initiative and so refrain from stealing cars .

[New Judge]

"NEW JUDGE I think a fair libel cases would arise if folk followed your advice about guilt and innocence. "

Very possibly so, Corby. But that similarly does not alter the fact that you are guilty if you commit an offence, not necessarily that you are convicted of it. Of course if a libel case did arise because somebody had been accused of guilt when they had not been convicted the alleged libeler (is that a word?) would have to show that the allegations were true only on the balance of probabilities, not beyond reasonable doubt - a far less stiff test.

[THECORBYLOON]

NEW JUDGE, for a person to be guilty of an offence, first it has to be established that an offence has been committed and second it has to be established that it was the accused who committed that offence. The fact that a case is brought to court means only that in the opinion of the prosecuting authoriities, there is better than a 50/50 chance of a guilty verdict.