“As stings became more common, courts have been reluctant to set more limits on what police are allowed to do in them,” says Oliver. “As one analysis put it, there are no clear legal limitations on the length of the operation, the intimacy of the relationships formed, the degree of deception used, the degree of temptation offered, and the number of times it is offered, all of which leaves the government with a nearly limitless ability to deceive. And some law enforcement will take that as an opportunity to rack up easy arrests and make some headlines.”
There are plenty of examples of this throughout the segment. For one, Oliver spotlights an austistic California teen who was convinced by an undercover cop to buy half a joint off the street after three weeks of goading by police. He was then arrested in school in front of his classmates. Another example from Newburgh, New York saw four men arrested on a terror plot, despite the government admitting during a trial that they had no plan for one and no technology ability. A judge later called the United States the “real lead conspirator” of the plot.
“Making up imaginary crimes and arresting people for them is not law enforcement, it is theater,” says Oliver near the segment’s conclusion. “In fact, the one reform that might actually be within our control right now is to try and remember that we are all the audience for that theater. If you are serving on a jury, or work in the media, or saw a story on TV about a sting operation, it’s worth questioning what role law enforcement played in creating the crime that they just supposedly stopped.” Check out the whole segment below.
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