It’s called entrapment and, to the best of my knowledge, it is illegal to do this.

Except it’s not, because to prove entrapment you need to prove that a) police instigated the crime, b) which you would not otherwise have committed.

Leaving bait lying around is passive enough that it probably doesn’t qualify for point A, and makes it nearly impossible to prove point B.

Nasty, sleazy, underhanded, actively detrimental to the communities they’re supposed to be “serving,” but legal.

imagine using tax money to buy food, and instead of just giving the food to hungry people, you fucking use that food to bait hungry people into a crime of desperation.

“In the first place, it is not true that with a change of social conditions the nature of the government and its functions would also change. Organs and functions are inseparable terms.

Take from an organ its function, and either the organ will die, or the function will reinstate itself. Place an army in a country where there is no reason or fear of foreign war, and this army will provoke war, or, if it does not succeed in doing that, it will disband. A police force, where there are no crimes to discover, and delinquents to arrest, will provoke or invent crimes, or will cease to exist.”

-Errico Malatesta, “Anarchy” (1891).

It’s completely fucked up to me that all that isn’t entrapment but SOMEHOW posting DUI stations outside bars IS