Why The Abuse Of Sting Operations Should Not Be Done In High Schools

Do you trust your peers? How would you react if you found out that not only were they a police officer, but they were also impacting people around you negatively? This is one of the many situations student victims find themselves in when sting operations are performed in high schools. Situations like 21 Chump Street by Lin-Manuel Miranda and episode 457: What I Did For Love on This American Life hosted by Robbie Brown where they talk about how Justin, a good kid, met an undercover cop and fell in love with her, resulting in his arrest for her exploitation. Another situation can be seen like this in The Entrapment of Jesse Snodgrass on Rolling Stone by Sabrina Rubin Erdely, where Jesse, diagnosed with autism, was falsely befriended by undercover

Undercover police sting operations should not be conducted in high schools because it involves cops influencing students negatively to make an attempt to make an arrest rather than caring about them. In Lin-Manuel Miranda’s script, Justin is a well-behaved boy who just so happens to be in love with Naomi, an undercover police officer tasked with tracking down drug dealers. While sitting down with her, Naomi asked Justin if he smoked weed, to which he told her that he didn’t. However, he says that he could get her some if she wanted. Naomi responded by saying, “You would do that for me?” (Miranda, page 4). This piece of evidence illustrates how Naomi is influencing Justin to commit a crime by using flirtatious language as a response to him. This type of language suggests to Justin that if he gets her drugs, she will do something in return for him. By using his desire to be with her, it exposes him to legal risks that would not normally affect him.

Others might say that doing things like this is for the greater good of preventing people from being involved with drugs, but actions like these create the opposite situation. Conc Police are arresting people who are not actual bad people. In the episode of “This American Life,” when talking about how the operation first began, Justin is introduced, “... a kid named Justin Laboy, an 18-year-old honor roll student, was in the last semester of his senior year” (Brown, page 1). This depicts how Justin has a history of being a good student with good grades, meaning that he pays attention in class. While it is accurate that Justin did commit the crime willingly, clearly with his history it can be seen that if there was no police operation done in his high school, he would still continue to be the same studious kid because of his habits. In The Entrapment of Jesse Snodgrass, Jesse’s backstory is briefly talked about, where when he was younger, he was depressed and made no eye contact with