IANAL, but this sounds right to me. It’s fine if, say, the police hide out at a shop that is tempting and easy to rob and encourage the owner not to make their shop less tempting or easy to rob so that it can function as a “honeypot” that lets them nab people in the act of committing crimes. On the other hand, although the courts often decide that it’s not entrapment, undercover cops soliciting prostitutes or illegal drugs are much closer to being entrapment, because then the police are actively creating the demand for crime to supply.
Depending on how you feel about it, I’d say this suggests the main flaw in your idea, which is that it will be abused on the margin to catch people who otherwise would not have committed crimes, even if you try to circumscribe it such that the traps you can create are far from causing more marginal crime, because incentives will push for expansion of this power. At least, that would be the case in the US, because it already is.
IANAL, but this sounds right to me. It’s fine if, say, the police hide out at a shop that is tempting and easy to rob and encourage the owner not to make their shop less tempting or easy to rob so that it can function as a “honeypot” that lets them nab people in the act of committing crimes. On the other hand, although the courts often decide that it’s not entrapment, undercover cops soliciting prostitutes or illegal drugs are much closer to being entrapment, because then the police are actively creating the demand for crime to supply.
Depending on how you feel about it, I’d say this suggests the main flaw in your idea, which is that it will be abused on the margin to catch people who otherwise would not have committed crimes, even if you try to circumscribe it such that the traps you can create are far from causing more marginal crime, because incentives will push for expansion of this power. At least, that would be the case in the US, because it already is.