TheAgitator.com
When Entrappers Get Trapped
Sunday, December 16th, 2007So remember the story about New York City police leaving wallets and bags around, then arresting people who picked them up and walked by a cop without turning the found goods over?
I suggested someone do a “reverse sting,” to see how much stuff turned over to authorities actually makes it back to its rightful owner. The point, here, is not necessarily that the police will steal the stuff, but that in most cases, you’re going to have more luck contacting the owner yourself than turning over a found bag or wallet to a big city bureaucracy. This dumb entrapment operation basically makes criminals of people who make that decision.
Well, turns out the city’s Metropolitan Transit conducted just such an experiment. They had subway riders turn 26 personal items to transit authorities, then tracked how many of the items made it back to the rightful owners. It didn’t turn out so well. Only three of the 26 were properly returned. More:
The report said that the transit agency’s lost property unit received more than 8,000 items each year and that only about 18 percent wound up back in the hands of their owners. Most unclaimed items were eventually auctioned off, the report said.
The audit also uncovered a chaotic system for handling property once it is turned in, with few safeguards. Often it can take weeks or months for lost items to make their way to the property unit’s office where people can claim them.
Then there was the case of the lost earring. After it was found, a bus employee put the earring, which was set with what looked like a diamond, into an envelope for transfer to the lost property unit, the report said. But the envelope arrived empty.
So here’s a suggestion: Maybe NYC authorities should spend less time trying to bait city residents into committing crimes, and do a better job keeping their own employees in line.
I actually made the same point about a “reverse sting” operation in an online forum in which I participate. One of the other participants in the forum is a current NYC police officer. He stated that a couple of years back the local NY ABC affiliate did the same thing with wallets, but this time the wallets were turned into a police officer or station, instead of a transit worker. He stated that all 20 wallets of 20 tested were returned to the proper owners within a week. This guy is actually pretty decent and fair (for example, he was very critical of the Utah Highway patrolman who tasered that guy who argued about his speeding ticket), so I have no reason to think he is lying.
Anyway, if you can find that report, it might be interesting to include, in the interest of fairness. If accurate, it would be somewhat heartening to see that the system can work at times.
While I agree with your disgust, I would point out that (at least by Georgia law — but this seems to be pretty universal), the wallet-trap will actually not qualify as entrapment in court. The “rule” is a little different everywhere, but generally stated the cop is allowed to “set a trap” as long as they don’t coerce you into doing something and let your “predisposition” to act guide you.
So, the cops are going to say that they were setting a trap designed to catch predisposed free-wallet-grabbers. Or something.
Honestly though, I don’t even see the utility in the cops setting ANY traps. I suppose there is an argument for the online-underage-sex-predator traps (how else do you deal with kid-molestors?), but even then you can border on entrapment (Jacobson v. United States: SCOTUS ruled that entrapment existed where the guy was bombarded with materials from the US Government for years…).
We need to bring the cops back under the rule of law.
>Most unclaimed items were eventually auctioned off, the report
>said.
Which makes me suspect the desire to make sure people turn stuff over to the cops instead of returning it themselves is to protect a revenue stream.
Radley: In the interest of being seen to be fair and impartial, can you find anything to corroborate Mappo’s story?
Brian,
You’re right that entrapment is a very tough standard, but the problem with this effort by the police is that it’s not even criminal conduct to pick up a wallet and NOT turn it over to the first police officer you see.
The fact that the item is not handed over is only evidence that the person intended to keep it, which would be a crime. But obviously it’s not very good evidence considering most people who cared to see the item get back to its owner probably would make the effort themselves (let’s not forget the motivator that the owner might give you some sort of reward).
So while technically not entrapment, it is still *creating* crime out of nothing based on serious leaps in reason, and will sweep up innocent people, doubtless.
As for the 20 for 20 item, Mappo. Anything less than a 90% success rate for items that contain the owner’s ID (like a wallet or purse) would be pretty disgraceful for a police department.
I’ve been trying to google the story, but found this story instead:
http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/story?id=132229&page=1
There were 20 wallets or purses given to random LA police officers and all 20 were returned (although 3 police officers refused to take the wallets). Since the details are so similar, this was either the story I was told about (and I screwed up some of the details) or the NY ABC affiliate did a copy cat story with similar results.
Thanks Mappo. Funniest thing on the link is Bernie Kerik talking about honesty.
Nevertheless, the fact that Kerik was NYC commish means that the article is from 2001 at the latest. This compares to the recent 2007 story of rampant corruption and/or inefficiency in NYC transit. I am very willing to believe that NYPD are less corrupt and more efficient, but would still like to see the test done on NYPD in 2007 in view of their sudden interest in arresting and charging people with a felony for commission of an innocent act.
Oops I apparently didn’t read the whole article. Yeah, they tested both LA and NY and both returned all of the wallets, so this must be the same “reverse sting” that that guy was referring to. I, too, would be interested in seeing a repeat, however.
This was not a reverse sting on the police, as you imply by claiming it is the reverse sting that you were hoping for.
The original operation was completely idiotic, but let’s not claim that the police did worse. A bunch of transit employees did worse.
Radley, The reverse sting had nothing to do with cops. You make fun of headlines and yet do the same thing yourself.
Mappo, Not only do news stations do this, but we have internal tests on cops. They can do them all they want and I don’t think there will be any major problems except, if I remember in the NYC case cops in a few cases failed to give a reciept to the person as per procedure but they did turn in the money and wallets.
Reminds me of the time I lost my wallet in Memphis. I was called by a lawyer, later on, wanting a monetary prize for its return. Saying his client had a “history” and was afraid to return it! Maybe it was really because it said MD behind my name, and everybody sees $$$$’s! I had already taken care of the lost things, so I told him to just keep it. No money was sent to that scammer!