Ethics In Criminal Justice Practice Test

Entrapment is assessed from two angles. The subjective approach looks at the defendant’s background, character, and predisposition toward crime to determine if entrapment occurred. It asks whether the person would have committed the offense without government prompting; if the defendant was predisposed, the defense is less likely to succeed, whereas if not predisposed, government inducement can establish entrapment. This contrasts with the objective approach, which focuses on the police conduct and whether those methods would have enticed a typical, law-abiding person to commit the offense, regardless of the defendant’s own tendencies. So the described method is the subjective approach.