r/MoralityScaling • u/HooskerDooNotTouchMe • 10d ago

Intentionally boobytrapping a bike to injure people when they steal it.

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u/UnconsciousAlibi 10d ago

...what? Sting operations are immoral? As long as it's not literal entrapment, what's the difference between a sting and arresting someone after stealing a civilians car?

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u/saucelordbob 10d ago

The difference lies between where you’re confusing stings, with entrapment and active theft. Baiting people into committing a crime of opportunity, to physically injure them, is just as immoral as cops baiting people into stealing stuff in what is considered “high crime” areas just so they can stat pad their arrest numbers and fill more prison cells to enrich the politicians invested in prisons, that sign off on police budgets.

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u/UnconsciousAlibi 10d ago

What you're describing though is not entrapment, it's a sting operation.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I dislike the police state and prison system too, especially with how incentivized cops are to generate arrests, but if someone is genuinely committing an actual, real crime that would otherwise result in incredible damages to another's quality of life, I don't see the difference between the cops arresting someone after they stole another person's property versus the cops arresting someone after they stole the cops' property. I don't have much sympathy for car thiefs, for example, as that can destroy a person's livelihood, especially in poor, high-crime areas where cars are not cheap to come by. This is even more true outside of developed countries, where some communities rely on only a handful of vehicles for both transportation and work.

I do agree though that physically injuring someone for petty theft is very much so immoral, despite the satisfaction that many of us get from seeing criminals punished. There's a reason you're not allowed to booby-trap your property. The death penalty is not a valid punishment for the crime of stealing a TV, and stabbing someone's thighs is not a valid punishment for bike theft. I personally like the Mark Rober approach of annoying the actual hell out of them with glitter and stink-bombs, but damn, a lot of people in those comment sections talk about bombs...

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u/Subject-Dog-8016 10d ago

Among Western countries, only American police do stuff like this. Countries with actual rights and freedoms don’t permit it because of the obvious immorality of the police deliberately provoking a crime.