Posted on April 04, in Uncategorized. Law enforcement in Houston has made a strong effort to stem prostitution in recent years. In addition to more aggressive prosecution of prostitutes and Johns alike, the police have also stepped up their efforts to increase arrests so police departments can receive federal grant money. One of the tactics they rely on is known as a sting operation.
Police need arrest numbers to justify the federal grant money law enforcement will receive. Police will scoff at the notion of a quota-based system, but receiving grant money is specifically based upon performance, i.
To meet these performance-based arrests numbers, police engage in sting operations that are a deceptive trap set up to capture both prostitutes and those who solicit them. But are they legal? Many of these stings result in mass arrests over the course of several days. But does the use of deception in these operations result in entrapment? After all, entrapment is one of the strongest defenses in a Houston prostitution case.
Below, we discuss when these sting operations cross the line into illegal entrapment. Many unwitting citizens looking for a companion find themselves the victim of a law enforcement entrapment scheme when all they were searching for was a legal massage.
A sting operation is usually a large-scale police operation. In some cases, multiple law enforcement agencies will work together on a sting. These operations typically involve a member of law enforcement posing as a prostitute or john.
