Vox quotes Professor Joh's 2015 article about police 'bait' operations

A Vox article about community pushback regarding a Chicago bait-truck sting operation cited Professor Elizabeth Joh’s 2015 Harvard Law Review article “Bait, Mask, and Ruse: Technology and Police Deception.”

Chicago railway police, assisted by city police, recently set up a “bait truck” loaded with Nike Air Force 1 and Christian Louboutin shoes - and rigged with surveillance and tracking devices– in Englewood, a predominantly black neighborhood. Three people were arrested during the sting, which was intended to curb cargo theft in the area.

Community members, shown in a video accompanying the story, accused police on the scene of unfairly “setting up” people who otherwise would not have been tempted to steal. Activists criticized the sting as an example of anti-black aggression by police.

The Vox piece points out that entrapment law allows defendants who take bait to claim the government turned them into criminals – rather than just provided an opportunity to commit a crime. Vox then counters with quotes from Joh’s article.

“Entrapment is a losing defense,” Joh wrote in “Bait, Mask, and Ruse.” “For most courts, the conclusion that a defendant is criminally predisposed to commit the offense bars an entrapment claim even where the government’s temptations may be unrealistically attractive.”

Such sting operations chip away at public confidence in policing, Joh wrote. They “amount to generalized ‘fishing’: attempts to find out if anyone will be tempted by the proper enticement,” she wrote. “Police are not bound by probable cause or reasonable suspicion requirements before they engage in a sting.”

Professor Joh's scholarship focuses on criminal procedure and policing, with a special emphasis on DNA evidence, undercover policing, and new surveillance technologies. She is the recipient of King Hall’s 2017 Distinguished Teaching Award.