There is often some confusion about entrapment. For instance, people think of entrapment as any situation where they feel tricked or deceived by the police. For example, if someone tried to sell drugs to an undercover police officer and was then subsequently arrested, they may claim it was entrapment because that officer did not make it clear that they were a law enforcement officer.
But that is not necessarily true, and undercover policing is usually not an example of entrapment. The police don’t have to be honest, and they’re even legally allowed to lie to suspects in most cases. So how does entrapment actually happen?
Creating the idea for a criminal act
Entrapment is essentially when a police officer gives someone else the idea to carry out a criminal act that that person would not have done on their own. The officer does this just so that they are then able to arrest the individual for breaking the law. But that law never would have been broken without the officer’s involvement.
This is prohibited because the goal is for the police to simply monitor the actions that civilians take and make arrests when people decide to break the law. But in an ideal society, no one would break the law and arrests would not be needed. If a police officer is intentionally causing people to commit crimes just to make these arrests, that is unfair to those individuals and it actually increases the crime rates across the general population.
If you’ve been arrested and you feel like the police manipulated you and used entrapment to convince you to break the law, then it’s very important for you to understand all of the criminal defense options at your disposal.