What is your opinion when you read a news story about the police tricking someone into getting arrested? When a police officer poses as a prostitute to arrest unsuspecting clients, is that fair? How about those instances when the police send people letters saying that they have won a free vacation but those people wind up being arrested when they arrive at the police station? Does that sound legal and fair to you? In the real world, you will sometimes find the legal and fair are not always the same things.
The Oldest Trick In The Book
Criminals with outstanding warrants are constant targets for law enforcement. When a person has a warrant for their arrest, the law enforcement community never really stops looking for that person until they are found. The problem is that law enforcement budgets around the country are usually not expansive enough to pay for officers to go out and hunt down every criminal with an outstanding warrant.
Instead of paying for the manpower to hit the streets and hunt down people with warrants, police officers will usually use lures that have become some of the oldest tricks in the book. A criminal with a warrant suddenly gets a letter in the mail saying that they have won a free vacation and all they need to do to collect is go to the address in the letter. Sometimes time the address is a hotel, and sometimes it is the police station. When they go to collect their prize, they are arrested.
Can They Do That?
The question every person who is not a legal expert asks is whether or not the police can use the old “you have won a prize” trick to arrest people with warrants. The short answer is yes, but the long answer can help you to understand why.
These fake prize notifications normally have some type of small print in them that indicates that the prize the criminal actually receives may differ from the description in the notice. Instead of getting a free vacation, the criminal gets a free trip to jail. Since the criminal has a warrant for their arrest, the police are not using this scheme to convince the criminal to commit a crime. They are just bringing the criminal in to be arrested for their warrant. Since the police are not enticing the criminal to create a crime, this scheme is perfectly legal.
If you have a warrant for your arrest and receive a notice that you just won a fabulous vacation or some other prize, you may want to think twice. Since you have already broken the law and have a warrant out for your arrest, the police are within their legal rights to trick you into walking into a trap and getting arrested. Sometimes the best approach is to just turn yourself in and avoid the disappointment of not getting your fabulous prize.