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Entrapment And The Problem Of Deterring Police Misconduct, Dru Stevenson

ExpressO

Many the states currently use a version of the entrapment defense known as the “objective test,” which focuses solely on the extent of police overreaching in the case, and seeks to deter police misconduct by acquitting the defendant. Acquitting defendants as a means of deterring undercover police misconduct, however, is a public policy fraught with problems, and these problems have not been adequately addressed in the literature to date. This article applies the insights of modern deterrence theory to wrongful activity by police in undercover operations. In doing so, three general problems emerge. First, the objective test relies on an …