Who Wants To Go To Jail? Who Wants To Go To Jail?

So now my New York City has come up with a new plan. Brilliant, brilliant plan. The police are now leaving briefcases and bags out with wallets in them, containing cash and credit cards, in order to entrap would-be thieves. But in fact, innocent people who have picked up the bags to try to bring them to the authorities are being charged with robbery or whatever charges come with taking a bag sitting there all alone. How insanely ridiculous is that? I swear I have heard on the news these terrible stories of citizens trying to do the right thing getting brought up on false charges.

Now in Florida, the police have a similar entrapment sting going on but with cars instead of bags. This is a whole other tier of robbery, as a bystander cannot drive a "wayward" car to the local police station to return it to its rightful owner. And what the police do is rig the cars so that the would-be thieves, once confirmed they are trying to steal the car, get locked in the car and the engine shuts down and they cannot escape. The police monitoring the car nearby come out and arrest the thieves. Now this I feel is also entrapment, but stealing a car and picking up a handbag are two totally different things. Especially when trying to steal a car cannot be misconstrued as anything else. And the lines of returning a bag and stealing it can be totally blurred.

Now this also brings into play the campaign that New York City has launched about reporting bags left alone in public places. So how does this all tie in together? I have no idea, but I foresee disaster. Or at the very least, citizens like me (insert snickering here) reporting each and every bag we see, annoying the police, as we should rightly do so for this inane sting they have set up. Think about it. It's quite comical....