When it comes to going after criminals, some people will argue for Machiavellian thinking on the process. They’ll say that the ends justify the means.
But if that is true, then any atrocity is justified in order to get a desired outcome.
Keep in mind that we’re not talking about self-defense here. If someone else attacks you, then they have already revealed that violence will happen unless they are stopped. In a self-defense scenario, it’s the attacker who is using Machiavellian thinking because they feel justified in using unprovoked violence to get someone else to cooperate.
We really should question whether Machiavellian thinking is ever justified.
Unfortunately, at least one state seems to take that kind of thinking as justified when trying to prosecute people, including gun owners. Cayla Mihalovich with the Associated Press talks about how law enforcement in California used what has been called “psychological Warfare” tactics to try to get information out of (and, likely, a conviction of) an Hispanic man around a gun charge. Mihalovich writes,
When Jason Zapata was arrested for allegedly firing a gun into the air, he was thrown in a dimly lit holding cell with trash strewn across the floor and a broken payphone on the wall. It had nothing more than a rusted toilet, sink and three wooden benches that looked as though they had never been cleaned.
Two older men with shaved heads sat in the back, eyeing the 24-year-old’s wristband that the jail used to display his personal information. One was over 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. The other was covered in tattoos from head to foot. They were gang members, they said, in jail for murder.
These two guys proceeded to try to intimidate Zapata into revealing information about a different case (and probably his own case) even though it’s unclear from the article if Zapata had any connection to the other case that they were trying to get information about.
Three months later, Zapata learned it was all a ruse: His cellmates were undercover law enforcement agents attempting to obtain information about an unsolved murder from the previous year. They were part of what is known as a “Perkins operation,” a controversial law enforcement tactic in which a police officer or civilian poses as an incarcerated person to elicit incriminating statements from a suspect.
Frankly, this is sneaky and, you would think, a violation of the Fourth Amendment since it is completely based on dishonesty on the part of the guys working with law enforcement.
Now, am I saying that all (or even most) law enforcement officers aren’t trying to do the right thing? No, I’m not saying that at all.
What I am saying, though, is that there are certain lines that shouldn’t be crossed due to their ethical (and, maybe, legal) ramifications. Psychological warfare is something that should never be used by law enforcement.