Sting Operations Research Articles

THE ANALYSIS OF THE AUTHORITY OF THE CORRUPTION ERADICATION COMMISSION IN CONDUCTING STING OPERATIONS

The state suffers losses as a result of corrupt practices. The general populace shares the state's concern over this crime. The state and public are experiencing instability, and the Corruption Eradication Commission's position and power are crucial in overcoming and minimizing this. So, a sting operation is one of the things the Corruption Eradication Commission does. In this instance, it's important to consider not just the procedures followed by the Corruption Eradication Commission during sting operations, but also the operation's legal foundation and any elements that may have impeded its success. Opponents of the OTT point out that the Criminal Procedure Code only uses the phrase "caught red-handed," which they believe to be inadequate. The distinction thus leads one to the conclusion that being caught red-handed is indeed unlawful. I perceive a logical error in reasoning with respect to this issue. Although this phrase is not used in any Indonesian statute, it is true that the Criminal Procedure Code does not recognize it either. But that doesn't imply the operation is inherently unlawful.

Disowning the past: an assassination, complex transnational influences, and the generational rift within the Iranian communist movement

ABSTRACT An elaborate sting operation by Iranian security (SAVAK) centred on Abbas Shahriyari, an able SAVAK secret agent and a Tudeh Party member, to entrap underground leftist activists in the 1960s unwittingly unleashed a complex transnational web involving Iranian opposition and Soviet intelligence. The People’s Fadai Guerrillas (PFG) eventually assassinated Shahriyari and vastly propagated this operation through an extensive communiqué. The assassination marked the decisive, and highly symbolic, rejection of the legacy of the Tudeh Party by the rising Marxist PFG that came from an entirely younger generation, but it unwittingly also exposed in retrospect the complex web of actors drawn into SAVAK’s sting operations. This paper situates this assassination in its historical context and quadrangular web of Tudeh Party, PFG, Soviet intelligence, and SAVAK. It offers a close reading of PFG’s extensive communication about this assassination as the break within Iran’s communist movement.

Addressing researcher fraud: retrospective, real-time, and preventive strategies-including legal points and data management that prevents fraud.

Researcher fraud is often easy and enticing in academic research, with little risk of detection. Cases of extensive fraud continue to occur. The amount of fraud that goes undetected is unknown and may be substantial. Three strategies for addressing researcher fraud are (a) retrospective investigations after allegations of fraud have been made, (b) sting operations that provide conclusive evidence of fraud as it occurs, and (c) data management practices that prevent the occurrence of fraud. Institutional and regulatory efforts to address researcher fraud have focused almost exclusively on the retrospective strategy. The retrospective approach is subject to controversy due to the limitations of post-hoc evidence in science, the difficulty in establishing who actually committed the fraud in some cases, the application of a legal standard of evidence that is much lower than the usual standards of evidence in science, and the lack of legal expertise by scientists investigating fraud. The retrospective strategy may be reliably effective primarily in cases of extensive, careless fraud. Sting operations can overcome these limitations and controversies, but are not feasible in many situations. Data management practices that are effective at preventing researcher fraud and unintentional errors are well-established in clinical trials regulated by government agencies, but appear to be largely unknown or unimplemented in most academic research. Established data management practices include: archiving secure copies of the raw data, audit trails, restricted access to the data and data collection processes, software validation, quality control checks, blinding, preregistration of data processing and analysis programs, and research audits that directly address fraud. Current discussions about data management in academic research focus on sharing data with little attention to practices that prevent intentional and unintentional errors. A designation or badge such as error-controlled data management could be established to indicate research that was conducted with data management practices that effectively address intentional and unintentional errors.

Decision-making in terrorism sting operations: is entrapment driven by the sunk-cost effect and intergroup biases?

ABSTRACT Previous research has found that entrapment – inducing suspects to commit crimes they were not already predisposed to commit – is widespread in US terrorism sting operations, particularly those involving Muslims and racial minorities. To test whether the sunk cost effect and/or intergroup biases could explain decisions to authorise these operations, we conducted an experiment in which college student and MTurk participants (n = 1009) from the US and India decided whether to approve an operation featuring apparent entrapment. Sunk costs and suspect characteristics were manipulated across experimental conditions. Results for US participants (n = 792) show that high sunk costs increased approval of the operation only for relatively young participants, and only in scenarios with non-Muslim suspects. Scenarios with Muslim suspects yielded higher approval rates for participants who were confident in their decision. Indian participants (n = 217) were more likely than US participants to approve the operation and were unaffected by suspect religion and sunk costs. Results suggest that the sunk cost bias may play some role in entrapment, although other factors, such as outgroup bias, may also contribute to these decisions. The observed cross-cultural differences could result from international variations in susceptibility to the sunk cost effect, among other factors.

Putting the “Compassion” in Compassionate Release

In a harsh and inflexible system that offers few opportunities for judges to reevaluate the sentences they impose when circumstances warrant, federal compassionate release holds great promise. When the First Step Act was passed in 2018, sentencing judges were freed from the restrictive Sentencing Commission policy statement that limited the circumstances under which judges could grant relief. Exercising that newfound discretion, judges began granting sentencing reductions for reasons not enumerated in the outdated policy statement, such as COVID-19 and excessive and unjust sentences. Judges in certain federal circuits, however, have been increasingly constrained by appellate case law that cabins judicial discretion. This article makes the case for the Sentencing Commission to expand and codify in its forthcoming policy statement judicial discretion to identify unenumerated “extraordinary and compelling” circumstances warranting a sentencing reduction and to reject circuit courts’ narrowing of compassionate release. We illuminate how judges have mindfully used their discretion over the past four years to grant relief for a variety of extraordinary and compelling reasons. In particular, this article describes our Clinic’s successful litigation for victims of law enforcement’s stash house reverse sting operations as illustrative of the need for expanded judicial discretion in compassionate release. Enshrining that discretion in an updated policy statement would provide an administrable safety valve consistent with Congress’s intent that compassionate release be a mechanism to remedy truly unjust sentences. Only then will compassionate release be truly compassionate.

The Deontology of Using Pets in Academic Publishing-Related Sting Operations

Academic publishing has become considerably stringent in the past few years because of increased scrutiny focused on an overwhelming number of challenges. One of the greatest challenges that academia faces is the notion that certain elements within science publishing have entered an era of ‘fake’. There are few moral arguments in favor of anything fake in academic publishing, including fake identities (authors, reviewers, or editors), fake peer reviews, or fake publications. We argue – humor aside – that a zero-tolerance approach is likely essential to prevent the proliferation of fake aspects in academic publishing, independent of the publishing venue, i.e., journal or publisher. Sting operations against ‘predatory’ publishing outlets, which involve the use of fake authors, papers, or editors, continue to be selectively praised, including by some media. In this opinion article, we focus on the personification of animals assuming roles within academic publishing, such as authors or editors, to emphasize that while perhaps there is an element of humor, such actions may further endanger scientific integrity, precisely at a time when academic publishing is in the phase of a crisis of trust. We believe that while the authors of such hoaxes and sting operations involving animals, as well as some readers, may find humor in these actions, academic publishing cannot and should not be equated with reality shows. We ultimately argue that such hoaxes and sting operations have no place in academic publishing, nor do they have any scholarly value. Finally, we put forward a set of guidelines that could assist academics, including early career researchers, editors, publishers and ethics-related organizations, in dealing with these threats.

The Alternative Economy: Informal Exchanges and Criminal Activities from the perspective of the Communist regime’s institutional framework

"The Alternative Economy: Informal Exchanges and Criminal Activities from the perspective of the Communist regime’s institutional framework. Shortages plagued Romanian communism from the very beginning to its inevitable downfall in 1989. People developed strategies to overcome it, based on informal exchange, creating an alternative economic system. Many of these activities involved stealing from the workplace, embezzling, abuse of position, and smuggling. It also involves a certain level of trust between individuals, allowing them to co-operate despite the risks. The authorities tried through surveillance and sting operations to reduce the extent of these activities, which were hindering the official economy. They went as far as infiltrating queues to gather information on the state of mind of the population. Keywords: shortage, ‘blat’, alternative economy, Miliţia, second economy, informal exchange "

Assessing the Ethics of Stings, Including from the Prism of Guidelines by Ethics-Promoting Organizations (COPE, ICMJE, CSE)

In academic publishing, stings appear to be on the rise. Stings may involve a paper with nonsense or fabricated content, fictitious authors or affiliations, and may be supported by artificially created emails or ORCID accounts, the latter to offer a false impression of validation. In recent times, stings have been used to protest editorial policies or to challenge claims of peer review, with the objective of exposing flawed policies and procedures. While some hail stings as success stories in exposing poor editorial policies and publication flaws, and while others draw humor from them, very few academics have suprisingly assessed the ethics (or lack thereof) and/or criminality of such operations. Consequently, it is rare to find academic papers that are critical of such stings from an ethical and/or criminal perspective. An equally surprising fact is that ethics-promoting organizations (COPE, ICMJE, CSE), which have ethics guidelines for paper submission to a wide swathe of academic and scholarly journals and publishers, do not have ethics clauses specifically calling out sting operations, even though several of their stated ethics guidelines consider fake, false or falsified elements in an academic paper to be unethical. In this paper, some reflection on broad ethical, humor-related and possible criminal elements of sting operations in academic publishing are considered. In addition, the COPE, ICMJE and CSE ethics guidelines were scrutinized to identify any clauses that could support the argument that stings in academic publishing are unethical.

Another Form of American Exceptionalism? A Comparative Analysis of Terrorism Sting Operations in the US and Abroad

ABSTRACT Sting operations can potentially thwart terrorist plots, but could also threaten civil liberties and alienate communities, making them a critical subject for counterterrorism research. Yet despite considerable research on U.S. cases, little is known about terrorism stings elsewhere. How common are such cases abroad, and how many feature strong entrapment claims or result in entrapment-related acquittals? In this study, data are gathered about non-U.S. terrorism stings, each of which is evaluated for entrapment indicators. Results show that, contrary to claims of American exceptionalism, terrorism stings could be identified in twenty-one countries, and the average number of entrapment indicators per case is similar between the U.S. and several countries. In addition, several non-U.S. cases present entrapment claims as strong as some of the most-criticized U.S. cases. However, relatively few non-U.S. terrorism stings (fifty-one) could be identified, while there are 156 U.S. cases. In addition, unlike in the U.S., courts have acquitted defendants on entrapment grounds in a high proportion of non-U.S. cases. Political, cultural, and legal differences between the U.S. and other countries, and certain cross-national commonalities, are identified as likely accounting for these results. Potential implications of these findings for terrorism prevention and legal reform are considered.

A Study on the Effectiveness of Drugs User-oriented Narcotic Investigation

국내에서도 마약류를 접할 수 있는 경로가 다양해짐에 따라 마약류 범죄도 증가하는 추세에 있다. 전 세계가 인터넷을 통하 여 세계 각국의 문화와 정보들이 교류함에 따라 외국의 마약문화를 쉽게 경험 할 수 있게 되었고, 이러한 마약류에 대한 관심은 국내 마약류 유입의 증가로 이어지고 있다. 특히 국내의 SNS의 사용량이 증가한 2014년부터 공교롭게도 마약류 범죄의 검거 인원도 늘어나고 있는 추세이다. 최근 대부분의 마약류 거래는 온라인상의 비대면 거래로 이뤄짐에 따라 수사기관은 마약류 범죄 단속을 위하여 위법의 여지가 있는 함정수사를 진행하고 있다. 마약류 공급자 및 투약자를 검거하게 되면 그들을 정보원으로 활용하여 공범 및 투약 의심자를 유인하는 방식의 수사를 진행하여 범죄를 예방하여야 할 책임이 있는 수사기관이 함정을 만들어 범인을 검거함으로써 신의칙에 반한다는 점에서 비판을 받고 있지만 현재 온라인상에서 이뤄지는 마약류 거래의 특성상 함정수사를 하지 않고서는 마약류 공급자 및 투약자에 대한 검거가 어려운 실정이다. 그러나 국내 마약류 범죄는 제조사범 및 공급자가 국내에 거주하지 않는 경우도 많아 투약자 위주의 수사에 중점을 두고 진행됨에 따라 투약자를 중심으로 시행되는 함정수사의 위법성 및 실효성에 대하여 생각해보아야 할 것이다. 수사기관의 마약류 투약자 위주의 수사는 실제 마약류 범죄 감소에 크게 영향을 미치지 못하고 있으며, 무리한 함정수사로 인하여 수사기관의 신뢰만 무너뜨리고 있다. 따라서 마약류 범죄를 감소시키기 위해서는 마약류 투약자에 대한 엄벌주의 보다는 마약 중독자에 대한 인식 변화 및 정책적 변화가 필요하다.In Korea, too, as the routes of encountering drugs have become more diversified, narcotic crimes tend to increase as well. Through the internet, all the countries in the world are exchanging their culture and information, and we can see that not only overseas drug culture but drugs are being introduced into Korea through various routes. Particularly, from 2014 when the use of SNS increased, the number of drug users arrested has tended to increase, too. To crack down on such untact drug dealings, investigative agencies are carrying out aggressive sting operations which are disputable for being unlawful. Since there are no substantive enactments on the current Criminal Procedure Law for sting operations and precedents are also rare, it is hard to judge if the investigation is illegal or not definitely. Through the investigation, once a drug supplier or user is arrested, they use them to lure other accomplices or suspected users. Also, they use the information source to lure the supplier or users. It is being criticized because it is against the Principle of Good Faith as the investigative agency responsible for preventing crimes sets a trap and uses it to arrest criminals. However, we should consider that due to the characteristics of narcotic crimes, it is difficult to arrest criminals without such sting operations. Regarding narcotic crimes in Korea, however, there are no criminals making drugs, so the investigation is oriented to either suppliers or user. We often face the outcome that is unfair because the suppliers get the benefit of a reduced sentence for providing the investigative agency with information about the users. The investigative agency’s narcotic investigation is mostly oriented to the users and performance, and it hardly leads to the reduction of narcotic crimes. Besides, with their severe sting operations, the investigative agency’s trust collapses. Accordingly, to reduce narcotic crimes, it is necessary to change people’s recognition on drug addicts and also change the policies instead of punishing the users harshly.

The futures of anticipatory reason: Contingency and speculation in the sting operation

This article examines invocations of the future in contemporary security discourse and practice. This future constitutes not a temporal zone of events to come, nor a horizon of concrete visions for tomorrow, but an indefinite source of contingency and speculation. Predictive, preemptive and otherwise anticipatory security practices strategically utilize the future to circulate the kinds of truths, beliefs, claims, that might otherwise be difficult to legitimize. The article synthesizes critical security studies with broader humanistic thought on the future, with a focus on the sting operations in recent US counter-terrorism practice. It argues that the future today functions as an ‘epistemic black market’, a zone of tolerated unorthodoxy where boundaries defining proper truth-claims become porous and flexible. Importantly, this epistemic flexibility is often leveraged towards a certain conservatism, where familiar relations of state control are reconfirmed and expanded upon. This conceptualization of the future has important implications for standards of truth and justice, as well as public imaginations of security practices, at a time of increasingly preemptive and anticipatory securitization.

Explaining the Emergence of Entrapment in Post-9/11 Terrorism Investigations

A growing number of studies have examined post-9/11 terrorism sting operations, typically concluding that entrapment is frequent in these cases. Yet no research has documented the full array of mechanisms driving these preemptive prosecutions. Based on in-depth interviews and documentary research, this article identifies the key factors shaping the widespread emergence of entrapment in terrorism sting operations. It concludes that an interconnected set of discursive and policy shifts, institutional processes, and cognitive biases explains the post-9/11 proliferation of terrorism prosecutions with compelling entrapment claims. Neo-orientalism is proposed as the ultimate driver that has set into motion and enabled many of these mechanisms, giving rise to a cultural and political economy of convictions in which a type of racialized police misconduct—itself a state crime—is normalized and rewarded.

Corruption, Right On!

Since 2002, the satirical investigative television show Fiks Fare (“Right On!” or “Exactly”) has aired immediately after prime-time news at a leading national broadcasting network in Albania. Through sting operations and cynical satire, the show tells the raw story of everyday experiences of corruption in Albanian society—from daily interactions with low-level public administration officers to the backroom deals of high-level officials. Over the years, Fiks Fare has endured as an effective whistle-blower in a country notorious for a lack of prosecutions and convictions on corruption charges. In this article, I explore the effects of this unlikely anti-corruption agent by drawing attention to its narratives of corruption, its technologies of investigation, and its genres of representation. I argue that, through its use of sting operations and mass mediation, the show constructs specific publics and subjects—victims, intermediaries, perpetrators—that engage in everyday corruption. Second, through its use of a genre of cynical satire and vulgar aesthetics, the show constructs a political commentary that makes visible the intimacies of corruption and the normalized complicity of ordinary people with figures of power. This genre speaks more broadly to forms of governance and of the state in a postsocialist context. I suggest that Fiks Fare remains effective over the years precisely because of the form of its critique of power, articulated not through opposition or resistance but rather through ambiguity, vulgarity, and complicity.

Racial and Other Sociodemographic Disparities in Terrorism Sting Operations

Previous research suggests a high prevalence of entrapment in post-9/11 terrorism sting operations, but it is unknown whether entrapment abuses are disproportionately targeted at specific racial/et...

Temporal trends in US counterterrorism sting operations, 1989–2014

ABSTRACTHow has the US government’s use of counterterrorism sting operations changed over the past quarter-century? Have major terrorist attacks led to more frequent sting operations and/or more frequent entrapment – and if so, have such changes been temporary or long-lasting? Have different types of terrorism provoked different reactions? This study answers these questions using a database of US terrorism prosecutions occurring between 1989 and 2014, each coded for 20 indicators of entrapment. We analyse temporal trends, and in particular, compare the government’s responses to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terror attacks. Results indicate that after the Oklahoma City bombing, the number of sting operations against right-wing extremists doubled, while the average number of entrapment indicators dropped. This suggests that authorities in the 1990s responded to the growing threat of right-wing terrorism appropriately: conducting more investigations while avoiding entrapment. After 9/11, sting operations against suspected jihadi terrorists rapidly increased, but in this case, they featured high numbers of entrapment indicators through the end of the study period, suggesting widespread and persistent entrapment. Reasons for this difference, and for the government’s failure to reduce entrapment in response to widespread criticism over the past decade, are analysed.

“Kind regards”: an examination of one buyer's attempt to purchase a trafficked child for sex

ABSTRACTA call to awareness regarding sex trafficking has increased research, bolstered social justice efforts, improved education, and influenced federal laws that protect victims and prosecute traffickers. Federal laws on sex trafficking are now being used through undercover sting operations via the Internet to arrest and prosecute buyers who attempt to engage in commercial sex with minors. A narrative analysis was completed to create an in-depth case study outlining the correspondences between a buyer and an undercover agent advertising trafficked children for sex. Readers are afforded a rare opportunity to examine actual emails related to the purchase of a child for sexual exploitation. The emails were used against the buyer as evidence within the court of law. The authors assert that the following case study will contribute to the body of literature on the victim selection processes and cognitive distortions employed by buyers of children for sex.

How Criminal Were the Irish? Bias in the Detection of London Currency Crime, 1797–1821

Currency-related crime was endemic in London during the Restriction Period (1797–1821). This article looks at 884 individuals suspected or charged by the Bank of England, and considers how changes in detection strategy affected the prevalence of ethnically Irish people within that list of suspects. It rejects an anti-Irish bias, and concludes that from 1812 a reduced reliance upon shopkeepers to catch people passing off false currency, and a subsequent rise in ‘sting operations’ initiated by paid officers and local informants, resulted in a significant increase in non-Irish culprits coming under suspicion and a proportionate decline of Irish accused. This change was the result of the Bank's newfound ability to target local networks involved in the less public forms of currency crime (selling, counterfeiting, forging) for which the Irish were less well known. These findings challenge the Irish criminal reputation by highlighting the important role of detection strategies in accusations.

Transparency and Truth during Custodial Interrogations and Beyond

Transparency and Truth during Custodial Interrogations and Beyond

Ethics and entrapment: Understanding counterterrorism stings

ABSTRACTThis 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.

Entrapment and Terrorism on the Left

Previous literature has analyzed entrapment in post-9/11 jihadi terrorism cases, but has neglected similarly compelling entrapment claims among left-wing terrorism defendants. The Article bridges this gap through an in-depth analysis of the four post-9/11 left-wing terrorism cases involving an informant or undercover agent. Based on a review of these cases, the Article concludes that at least three of the four cases had strong entrapment claims, and that realistically, none of the defendants in the four cases would have committed any terrorist offense without government prompting. A comparative analysis of different types of domestic terrorism finds broad similarities in the characteristics of entrapment claims in jihadi, left-wing, and right-wing terrorism cases. However, jihadi entrapment cases are far more numerous, left-wing and jihadi entrapment claims are considerably stronger and more prevalent than right-wing claims, and left-wing terrorism cases feature certain informant tactics rarely if ever found in other cases. The Article situates the left-wing entrapment claims in the context of wider government attempts to target left-wing activists, and provides an initial analysis of the main factors leading to questionable sting operations in left-wing terrorism cases.