Bait car
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- For other uses of term, see Bait
A bait car is a generic term used for a vehicle used by a law enforcement agency to capture car thieves. The vehicles are specially modified, with features including GPS tracking, hidden cameras that record audio/video, time, and date, and the ability to remotely monitor a variety of vehicle sensors and to control a vehicle by disabling the engine and locking the doors. The practice does not violate entrapment laws, since suspects are not persuaded to steal the vehicle by any means other than its availability and their own motivation.
The bait car is a phenomenon in the study of criminal behavior since it offers a rare glimpse into the actions and reactions of suspects before, during and after the crime. Unlike other crimes caught on surveillance cameras, suspects, at least initially, believe and react as if the crime has been wholly successful, until the bait car is apprehended by law enforcement personnel.
The largest bait car fleet in North America is operated by the Integrated Municipal Provincial Auto Crime Team (IMPACT), based in Surrey, British Columbia. Surrey was designated the "car theft capital of North America" by the RCMP in 2002[1]. Their program was launched in 2004, and has contributed to a 10% drop in auto thefts since then[2].
It can be argued that LoJack is a mechanism for widely deploying what are effectively bait cars.
[edit] Honey trap
A honey trap is a form of sting operation, in which wrong doers are lured into revealing themselves to a policing organization. This would include a bait car, where a sting operation targets a known or suspected individual and attempts to trap them committing a specific case of crime, a honey trap establishes a general lure to attract unknown criminals.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- BaitCar.com - Official website of IMPACT's bait car program in British Columbia. Includes on-board videos of bait cars being stolen.
- BSM Wireless - Manufacturer of systems for bait car programs including those featured on baitcar.com
