The police is by law, duty bound to maintain law and order. In the process of their maintenance of law and order, the police is entitled to do what is legally termed as Entrapment, especially when crime is prevalent in the society and the suspect always get away with it without getting caught.
Entrapment is basically defined as an act by the police, where the police sets up or tricks the general populace, with the aim of identifying the notorious offender or criminal who has been committing a particular crime in the society without getting caught.
The motive is to get this criminal to commit the said crime once again, so the criminal can be caught, arrested and prosecuted.
So for example, in a society where stealing is widespread, the police may load a private van or car with a lot of goods, abandon the said van or car in the locality where the stealing normally occurs for days, and lay ambush for the supposed criminal to make a move.
The police will lay ambush for any person who may fall to their trap, and arrest the person for stealing and prosecute the person accordingly.
The public discussion surrounding this kind of action by the police is that it is unfair to criminals, because such a set-up or trap actually forces or turns people into criminals; and that if the police had not set them up, they would not have committed any crime; and so as a matter of fact and principle these people should not be blamed.
The legal rationale behind the acceptance of this type of set-up or trap, is to identify people who are naturally criminals in both character and behaviour.
The law provides that there is absolutely nothing wrong with identifying these people as criminals, because the trick was not applied to them, rather they applied themselves to the trick.
Thus, a genuine and honest person who doesn’t have the genetic make-up, or the chromosomes, or the character, or the habit of stealing should never fall for the trap or trick.
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