Lawsuit targets NYPD sting tactic which tempts people to steal (2013)

> The NYPD, which did not comment on the suit, has defended the program as a tool to catch people with larceny in their hearts by presenting them with the opportunity to do the wrong thing.

WTF... No, this isn't how policing should work. I'm going to rant a little here. Policing is not a tool to entrap folks or assume folks are negative first and react to it. I'm guessing NYPD has a bigger budget and have more folks and ran out of things to do, so they need these programs to feed their "quota" or something.

I understand that in some situations, being proactive is the only way to tackle the problem but this isn't one of them. Larceny cannot be beaten out of folks, it's been here forever and never going to work with this program.

I'd go as far as saying that in some cases, larceny is a natural reaction to the society (think stealing bread/money to survive on the street due to oppression or no available resources to help folks).

Policing should be about discouraging this in the first place by helping folks and negate the reason to perform larceny in the first place. Why did that person needed to steal the wallet, because it was fun? If yes, then he should be educated in what really happens to the victim. If because he needed money to buy meds for his son, then we as a society need to work on that that no children should ever have to be in that situation (yes, I knew some folks who did this and they were in horrible situations that the city couldn't help them with).

For me, all this program is doing is:

1. Discouraging the society from helping each other. I'm now never ever going to pick up any wallet or anything to return it to its owners or the cops because I don't know if it is a trap or not. This is what China did and well, some of the things the folks ignored were disgusting (such as a kid getting run over by cars and people are just walking around because they fear getting caught doing something wrong).

This is stupid. If thieves are going to steal, they're going to steal but there are many more good people who will do the right thing. I don't see the cops awarding the good behavior.

2. They have better things to do, no? How about instead of spending time entrapping people, walk their beats, and helping the community. Spend time getting to know the folks, know right away if they need help or not based on how they're behaving.

I'm sure many of you will disagree and thinks this is a good program. I understand the reasons behind it, I just think it's not what we need to focus on when we have bigger things to worry about.