Police in Opelika Alabama Bust people not paying child support by offering them free football tickets
Those of you who have never been to the USA might not know this but Police in America regularly and routinely use entrapment techniques to bust bad guys. A lot of the times like the case of the dateline show that shows Chris Hansen busting potential child molesters is what is called entrapment. A lot of people might never have even "potentially" committed a crime if the police didn't entrap them.
James Johnson the first guy in the video was so excited that he won the tickets he was oblivious to the fact he was about to be arrested.
Why on earth the local news media were there I'm not sure, but that's how things are done in America, set up a sting, and bust ordinary citizens who would have done nothing wrong anyway, entrap them, and use the local and national news to sensationalize it. Now these people weren't paying their child support, ok, but did they have to put their faces on the news like they did here. This wouldn't fly in Australia or England.
Entrapment should be made illegal, it happens in Thailand too. Like the case about the couple who were soliciting sex on the Internet. Police posed as potential customers and then busted them. This happens a lot in Thailand.
Where the Opelika Alabama police department right in luring the offenders in by sending them letters and then showing their faces on the news? I don't think so do you? Comments please.
Absolutely criminal on the part of the arresting authorities! The “Family-Law” system is a “dog-and-pony-show” that only exists to give wives, (and their lawyers,) all of the man’s money, house, car, kids,… no justice whatsoever!
It shouldn’t be legal for cops to entrap people like that it’s just wrong
AGREED!
Excellent. Any method to make these lowlife’s meet their responsibilities is a good one. More, more, more.
Issues with inequities in custody laws and draconian support rules aside, telling people who have broken the law that they have won a prize so you can get them to come out of hiding is NOT entrapment. It is a good way to help root out people with warrants etc. Entrapment (in general) is when someone commits an act that entices or requires someone to do something illegal that they normally wouldn’t do. Not a fan of Chris Hansen and I believe that many of the methods are probably entrapment but since it isn’t the police doing it, it is all fine and dandy allegedly. Not awesome. And as far as the sex couple… look they advertised something illegal, the cops of course did not say, hey we are cops and are going to arrest you, what is your address. Again this was not entrapment. Entrapment would have been if cops themselves posted something illegal to get people to break the law that they could not prove otherwise that the people would have broken the law. So if the cops post on CL saying they will provide sex for money (which is illegal), then that is potentially entrapment.
Interesting story, thank you for raising these important questions regarding the morality and effectiveness of such law enforcement tactics. Entrapment is usually defined as a suspect being lured into committing a crime he would not have otherwise likely committed. But the question of “would they have been likely to commit the crime anyway?” is always a difficult one to answer, and so entrapment always seems to be somewhat of a grey area. With regards to Thailand, yes, sting operations are routinely conducted by the Thai police. It is important that foreigners be aware of Thailand child custody laws to ensure that they do not run into similar situations while in the Kingdom. In addition, compliance with the child custody laws of one’s home country while in Thailand is advisable, as there may be legal consequences for violating them, even while living abroad.
Thanks for the information Brett
Sorry Chris this is not entrapment. They had already committed these crimes when the police caught them.
Personally I think it is quite a funny way to catch people, also it is really effective from what I have read (the cops usually catch a lot of victims with this in 1 day) making it quite a cost effective exercise. If you don’t want to pay money for your own children you are probably a douche bag and deserve to get caught in such a dumb ass way
I agree any guy who doesn’t take care of his kids is a douche.