Ethics and entrapment: Understanding counterterrorism stings

Antony Field

Terrorism and Political Violence, 2019, vol. 31, issue 2, 260-276

Abstract: This article examines domestic counterterrorism sting operations in the USA. It considers why critics consider these operations unethical and illegitimate. In particular, it looks at claims that counterterrorism sting operations have entrapped innocent people. This article explains why the U.S. courts have rejected claims of entrapment. It discusses different standards of entrapment used by the U.S. courts and sets out how these standards apply to counterterrorism sting operations. The article will show how key pieces of evidence convinced the courts that the targets of sting operations were predisposed towards terrorism. As a result, defendants were not able to mount successful entrapment defenses. By the end of the article, the reader will have a better understanding of the ethical and legal safeguards governing counterterrorism sting operations in the USA.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/09546553.2016.1213721 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:ftpvxx:v:31:y:2019:i:2:p:260-276

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/ftpv20

DOI: 10.1080/09546553.2016.1213721

Access Statistics for this article

Terrorism and Political Violence is currently edited by James Forest

More articles in Terrorism and Political Violence from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().