Police Entrapment of Pedophiles

From: S
Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2019 7:58 AM
To: Walter Block <[email protected]>
Subject: Pedophiles and non-existent victims

Walter,

In my present circumstances I’m surrounded by non-libertarians, so I often find myself wondering if I’m the crazy one. For instance ….

I contend that when a man travels to meet, allegedly for sex, someone he believes to be a 13-year-old girl, only to be arrested when it turns out the “girl” was a police officer trolling for pedophiles online, no crime has been committed. No sex act took place, and most of all, the “victim” didn’t even exist!

My friends and acquaintances are aghast at my position. They believe of course that throwing the man in jail is a societal good because it may prevent him from harming a real child in the future. But furthermore they assert that, given the man really thought he was going to be having sex with a child, his preparations to do so (arranging a meeting place, buying a plane ticket, etc.) constitute a bone fide crime. The victim was not imaginary to him, up until he was slapped in handcuffs.

I also think it’s a case of police entrapment. The police will tell you it’s not because, in their online interactions, they let the man be the first to suggest meeting up, having sex, and so forth. May be, but isn’t the whole purpose of having a police officer impersonate a child to trick and then trap someone?

I’ve been kicking around the libertarian movement for many, many years. But this is one specific topic I’ve somehow never heard discussed. Is there something I’m just not seeing here?

S

From: Walter Block <[email protected]>

Sent: Thursday, October 24, 2019 12:13 PM

To: S

Subject: RE: Pedophiles and non-existent victims

Dear S:

This is a good one. A real good one. Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

In my view, this pedophile is guilty of mens rea, evil intentions, but not any actual crime. He should not be arrested. If the cops want to arrest him, they should hire an actual underage girl to meet him. As soon as he says one word of an offer to her, then arrest him.

On the other hand, I don’t see police entrapment as necessarily incompatible with libertarianism, even pure anarcho-capitalism. Suppose the private police leave cars around with keys in their ignitions. These are tempting targets for car thieves. I don’t see anything wrong, e.g., anti libertarian, with arresting these car thieves, after “entrapping” them with these easy targets. We’re not talking victimless crimes here. Then, there was the movie Death Wish. Charles Bronson would walk around dangerous neighborhoods, carrying a bag of groceries. When the bad guys attacked him, he’d shoot them. That also justified entrapment.

I’m now working on my book Defending the Undefendable III. Maybe I’ll include the entrapper, thanks to you.

Best regards,

Walter

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3:36 pm on November 10, 2019