Despite–what appears to be– considerable citizen DISAPPROVAL of undercover sting operations that are designed to entrap citizens doing non violent things like soliciting a prostitute ..or buying minors alcohol.. or selling a joint or three, they somehow continue in earnest, as today’s Bee article about a Woodland alcohol sting proves.
I am not a fan of these “entrapment fests.” It’s not that I am pro crime, it’s just that we simply do not have the money and/or resources to be tossing after mostly poor, down-on-their-luck saps– do we?? What is the payoff? A small fine most of them can’t even afford? These operations are sucking our already-depleted public safety resource pool dry, and costing taxpayers big bucks in salaries, planning, gas, vehicle maintenance, court fees, and so forth and so on, yet the police continue to conduct them. What gives?
My kids and I were watching an episode of Cops (or one of those shows), not long ago. Those types of shows serve as great backdrops for family discussions around the consequences of being on the wrong side of the law. [Ed: actually I watch it with my kids so they can learn where NOT to hide their stash in their car when they're old enough to drive one day]. In the episode we were watching, cops in some city were conducting an “uncover sting operation” (USO?) at a local liquor store. Three cops sat in a van and wanked around, while three or four more ate cheeseburgers and farted in nearby cars, while their under-aged decoy (a teenage girl camouflaged in To-Catch-a-Predator-style pigtails and baseball cap–sigh), solicited unsuspecting citizens to buy them alcohol. Of course they arrested several people uneventfully, but there was one surprise that day that still sticks out in my mind.
At one point during the operation the target (a scraggly old Vietnam veteran with a ZZ Top beard, jungle hat, and one tooth), takes the money from the girl, goes inside, buys a carton of cigarettes and a 12 pack of Pabst, comes back outside and proceeds to nonchalantly get in his truck. Of course half the city police force converge on him. A few cops even had their guns drawn. When they questioned him as to why he took the girl’s money and was preparing to run, he said, “I aint buyin no kid no alcohol, man. Serves her right.”
At that, my wife and I laughed out loud and cheered him on, half-expecting the cops to do the same. Surprisingly the cops found no humor in the situation. In fact they immediately read him his rights, took him into custody, impounded his car, and charged him with robbery.
In my narrow mind, that little bit of theater serves to underscore the absurdity of these operations. If he buys her the beer, he gets busted for contributing to the delinquency of a minor; if he takes her money to teach her a lesson, he gets busted for robbery; and of course if he ignores her someone else gets busted. As the car pulled away with the bewildered veteran in the back, the sergeant said to the camera,”There’s a right and a wrong way to handle these situations. If he really wanted to teach her a lesson, he should have reported her.”
Oh yeah, you guys really taught that old guy a lesson, didn’t you!? Sigh. And who should be getting the lessons anyways? Seems to me if you really wanted to dole out lessons, you would be out busting the kids trying to buy alcohol, wouldn’t you? How about putting ADULT decoys out there to lure the kids: “Hey kid, want some alcohol? I’ll buy ya some beer if you buy me a pack of smokes. Whadda ya say?”
What’s the difference between luring kids or luring adults? There is none. In both scenarios you’re LURING someone. You’re literally compelling them to commit crime. You’re actually obstructing the course of their day to make them a criminal. In my opinion, any time you fabricate crime (and in the process screw up the crime stats — would be like counting a hitter’s practice home runs as regular season HR’s), you are entrapping citizens.
What the $#@%? What’s next, littering the river side with 20 dollars bills stolen from a bank and then arresting homeless people for picking them up??!
I know, the anal ones will tell me these operations aren’t technically considered entrapment because they don’t meet such and such criteria; but regardless, I will hold my position that they are. Any time you deliberately try to “net” (as the Bee calls it), citizens as though they were fish in a stream, you are entrapping them. You are CATCHING them in your trap; and on top of that, you are even keeping the small ones instead of throwing them back!
Cops did this very thing last night on Woodland according to the Bee. Last week they did the same in Placer County. Apparently these operations are funded by a “grant” from the ABC (Alcoholic Bev Control); but lest we be fooled, grant means “money from taxpayers” and nothing more… right? Get this, from the Placer County operation:
“In Lincoln, the operation also was conducted in four locations. The decoy contacted 35 adults and one of the adults bought alcohol for the minor. The person was cited…” -Sac Bee 9-1-1 article
1 in 35?? Are you kidding me? That’s embarassing. And who was the one guy who fell for it? Don’t tell me, a migrant worker who can’t even afford the fine. Puh-leeze.
I will never support these types of programs because I do not approve of CRIME FABRICATION. Again I ask, who is planning and executing these wasteful operations that are clearly sucking our already-depleted public safety resource pool dry? Do poiice chiefs make these decisions unilaterally? Is it the ABC who sells them on conducting them? If so, who is giving the ABC authority to conduct these operations? If they have money for these grants, why aren’t voters getting to decide how that money is spent?
I believe these are important questions when we have a SEVERE shortage of cops, and most cities are cutting back service after service to get out of their budget holes. As many people have observed during these rough economic times: WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER. Every agency, including agencies like Alcoholic Beverage Control, should have to account for every penny they are spending. And furthermore, money they have to spend on ridiculous operations like these should be redirected to more critical public safety functions that are in jeopardy because of the budget crisis.
PS: I am not talking about legit decoy programs such as car theft decoys,pedophile decoys, and other operations that legitimately seek to take dangerous people off our streets.
Sources:
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/crime/archives/2009/06/sting-nets-7-su.html
http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/crime/archives/2009/01/five-arrests-re.html
I think you are going to get several schools of thought on this.
!. Goody two shoes that want everyone arrested for everything. These are the people who have never jay-walked in their lives and had a nervous breakdown for getting a ticket for driving 3 mph over the speed limit when they were 17. They want to see Johns and beer buyers burned at the stake. They would love to see everyone outside their gated Stepford community burned at the stake.
2. Progressive gen-xers like yourself who want pot in every flavor and every country on every grocery store shelf next to the coffee and purchasable by the pound. Free love! I bet you are pissed you were too young to go to Woodstock aren’t you, Joe? I bet you made it to Day on the Green though.
3. People who have never even thought about what you’re discussing here because their heads are so far up their ass they wouldn’t know if they were living next to Osama Bin Laden.
Sadly group 3 make up the majority of the people in our country and they are the reason the cops get to do whatever the hell they want with our money. These tools are too busy watching Jon and Kate and shopping at Ulta and cleaning their boats to know what the hell is going on in the world.
Fun article though. I love the stuff you write about.
Wow-someone who loathes his fellow Americans almost as much as me… I like Marcos.
Marcos, thanks for the laugh. Hilarious synopsis.
wow- i guess this won’t be a surprise to some- lol but I really like this article. I recall about a year or so ago when x-box 360’s were hard to keep on store shelves a sting operation was put up at lightrail stations and the boxes with surveillance inside were placed in cars to catch youth who it was believed would break into cars. Turns out it was not the unemployed youth or youth hanging around the lightrail who took the bait–but to the surprise of many the 2 youth (both in their early 20’s) who opened the car door to take the x-box 360’s (yes, they made it easy the car doors were unlocked) but the youth were employees with the security firm contracted to provide security at the rancho cordova light rail station. It was all caught on camera. Now, the employed youth would no longer be employed– youth who had no previous criminal records- now had records. And now with no job perhaps fall into a pattern of criminal activity… I can understand the need to prevent someone from breaking into cars (it has happened to me several times when I left my cell phone or something in the car…) but anyway I agree it is entrapment. And when it involves stings like you listed I agree it is a waste of policing–especially when their is a need to police high crime areas–deter violence…. But again I really like your article
also– funny thing is these stings are listed under a crime “prevention” umbrella–the grant is for crime prevention–but how is it preventing crime when it causes someone to commit a crime??? I guess some could argue the person was going to commit it anyway at some point… or have done so in the past– but I like the fact that the man you wrote about did not plan on making the purchase for the teen…. I could see –worse case scenerio– him being charged with misdeameanor theft–but robbery is a bit much… Again, I like your article very much
We should have stings for politicians… We set them up like playing tee ball by offering them campaign contributions in exchange for favors and legislation….
doh…except then we’d have none of them left.
Joe I agree with your point regarding alcohol sales to minors. But I would argue that prostitution solictitation is only a victimless crime until its happening on the street in front of your house with kids looking out the window (as it is at my friend house at Franklin & 2nd Ave).
Of course if the prostitutes and drug dealers would all just hang out at the liquor store then I guess that problem is solved (one stop shopping for adults taken to the extreme)
I also would counter your point that there is overwhelming citizen disapproval for sting operations. Us Americans, Californians in particular, seem to have an amazing capacity to accept an ever increasing number of laws to “protect us”. Opposition to police stings is not a mainstream discussion by any measure, iand ts hard to find much press on it. Its something that we don’t like, but probably not so much to compel us to write our city council or a letter to the editor.
Sort of the same as when you read about the police arresting a drunk driver on a bicycle. You know its stupid, but then you move on with the rest of your day.
BTW thanks Marcos Polos for turning me onto Ulta. Never heard of it before. They really have an impressive selection of mango enriched body butter.
Ha ha! You picked up on that too huh??
Yeah instead of calling it “crime prevention” why don’t they call it “crime invention”??? After all, they ARE inventing crimes! That’s what I should have named the article:
Crime prevention or crime INvention???
Cog: I didn’t say “overwhelming disapproval” did I? I think I said “considerable disapproval”
correction noted. Sorry Joe. Got me thinking about what motivates police departments to invest effort in these kind of stings. I assume its 2 things.
A) Publicity for the department. Stings give police departments a chance to create their own news cycle, which of course is eagerly gobbled up by the 10 o’clock news. Local news loves it since they have a pre-planned chance to broadcast a bit of “Cops” style footage. And most outlets that carry this kind of “news” will never give time to any opposing viewpoint, which in turn the police appreciate. And many citizens and city management all come away with a soft reminder that they are getting good value from their police department….without the drawbacks of negativity and spontaneity that bedevil normal news stories involving the police.
B) A chance to spend state and federal grant money / task force money pigeoned away for such efforts.
Crime prevention or Crime INvention—
I LOVE IT! and I couldn’t of came up with a better title 
cog: so it sounds like you are saying these stings are highly political … I concur..