I recently read a good article about sentencing concerning ‘sex crimes’ in Washington state.
The article noted two men recently convicted of actual sex crimes with a victim:
One man was convicted of repeatedly raping a girl. He received a minimum of 11 years in prison.
A man found guilty of repeatedly molesting a girl got a minimum of five years.
However, a man caught in a pro active police sting, with a criminal history, but
NO PRIOR SEX OFFENSES, RECEIVED 19.5 YEARS!
When asked about the disproportionate sentence, the reporter was told:
“That’s really how the law was written,” said Chief Deputy Prosecutor Chad Enright. “It’s toward people’s intent, and the crime they were intending to commit, as opposed to the damage that they do.”
Intentions. If you walk into a bank waving a gun… your intentions are pretty clear.
Thus I can see attempted robbery vs robbery. You are there, with a gun, asking for money.
But lets look at murder. Attempted murder is actually much harder to prove than murder. We all know that the penalty for murder is greater than attempted murder. Just watch a law and order episode and you’ll hear them say
‘you better hope he doesn’t die!’
The penalty varies from state to state, but without ‘intent’ in attempted murder, the punishment is significantly less.
For instance: as a general matter, if you are convicted of an attempted crime in California, you will face a prison/jail sentence that is half as long as the sentence you would have received if you had been convicted of the underlying offense.3
But in these proactive sex stings – there is no way to prove intent. Jace talked to someone on an adult website. He was sent the picture of a woman. He went to meet the woman for agreed upon sex thus he brought condoms. He met a 26 year old woman at the door. He entered and somehow they proved he INTENDED to have sex with a child. How is it even possible to prove such a thing?
A young man up here recently received 10 years on a proactive sting. He has NO criminal record, there was NO victim, there was NO proof that he INTENDED to do any such thing. Only illegally obtained, ambiguous emails and cell messages.
Where is the justice in that?
The Lady Justice Myth 
I think there really needs to be programs to help police officers who find themselves in these situations, where they feel they have nothing else to do. So, they have to come up with things to do, and they create crimes so they can pretend to be heroes and look like “they are doing their jobs”, when they really are not. What they are doing by creating these crimes themselves is losing more and more trust from the public. Now is a time when they should be working more on building public trust. Yet, we still have too many of these idiots doing the exact opposite and losing more and more public trust. I used to be a big time law enforcement supporter until it finally hit this close to me, for me to finally accept the fact of how common police abuse in this country really is. I’m actually very embarrassed now to admit that I just didn’t believe it was this common.
We need to have programs that teach, encourage, and require police officers to work on strengthening bonds within their communities, when crime is down (which should be an awesome thing). This is proactive policing. Proactive policing should be positive, not negative. This would be the best way to keep crime down and people safe. It’s really sad to see how backwards many people working in our justice system still are. Maybe better mental health services for them?? Something definitely needs to be done. We definitely have way too many people with the wrong mentality and intentions working in our system. The worst part about this is that many of them claim that this is what the public wants. Some of them may have really convinced themselves of that. The truth is no one wants an illusion of being protected. Everyone wants real protection. Sting operations are just creating an illusion of protection. It’s not real. It’s fake! It’s a quick “feel good” high for many people. Locking up people who are not true predators and labeling them as this for life is not helping or protecting anyone. Stop accepting this lazy work form police and start demanding they solve real crimes. If there is no crime to be solved, accept that as great news and demand that police do actual proactive policing by building positive relationships with the people in their communities. There is so much that can be done with this.
Creating crimes is helping absolutely no one.
The worst part about all this is that all negative things done to others always end up coming back on to those who create those negative things. We need more happy police officers, not more miserable, pathetic officers who are constantly paying back for the karma they receive back from creating crimes and arresting innocent people.
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Police and icac call these stings proactive, there’s nothing true about this, and no one, the media, the people asks them to explain in detail how they operate these stings and why they are considered proactive? Who is a child in trouble, and where online or what website is the supposed arrestee using that has any children or endangering child. Who are they even protecting or deterring? when they are the only ones jumping on sites no kid ever jumps in. Where only adults gather and talk online nonetheless
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It’s randomly targeting law abiding citizens.
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