Weekly Crime Poll: Are "Bait Cars" a Crime Deterrent?
Saturday July 11, 2009
In an effort to reduce auto theft, many police departments utilize decoy cars, or bait cars, which are equipped with cameras and tracking equipment. The program is supposed to deter would-be car thieves because the programs are widely publicized.
Poll: Is the practice of using "bait cars" to catch car thieves a deterrent to crime or is it entrapment?
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1) Deterrent
2) Entrapment
3) Undecided
Comments
Bait cars are a good idea when a certain type of crime is getting out of hand in a given area. As a for instance: Car “ripping” had reached almost epidemic proportions at our city’s many shopping malls, especially around Christmas time. Car ripping is when you are on a shopping trip, leave some purchased items in your locked car and continue to shop. When you return to your car some minutes later you find the doors open, your previous purchases gone and your car sound system missing. In no more than five minutes your vehicle would be completely cleaned out. By deploying numerous bait cars loaded with gift wrapped packages in the parking lot with all of them being closely watched we made hundreds of arrest in the month of December alone. Is it entrapment? When I hold a gun to your head and force you to steal something, that’s entrapment. You steal something just because it’s there, that’s a crime. The fact that you got caught doesn’t change your original intent to take something that doesn’t belong to you. BTW, we reduced the incidences of theft from autos by more than 50%.
I don’t know how much of a deterrent that the bait cars present; but, I do know how funny it is to watch the thieves realize that they have fallen for a trick. I have seen it many times on TruTV.