About Stop Reverse Stings

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Stop Reverse Stings was created to raise awareness about the growing use of formal and informal reverse sting operations and the serious risks they pose to fairness, safety, and justice.

Formal reverse sting operations are law enforcement tactics in which criminal scenarios are designed and controlled by the government rather than arising organically. These operations often rely on informants or undercover agents to initiate contact and carry out the plan. However, the alleged crime itself, including its scope, participants, and severity, exists only because it was created by law enforcement.

Informal reverse stings may operate outside a clearly documented law enforcement operation. They can involve cooperating individuals, private actors, community networks, or other third parties creating situations designed to test, pressure, bait, provoke, or document a person’s behavior. Even when these efforts are not officially labeled as investigations, they may still imitate the structure of a reverse sting by creating the scenario first and then treating the person’s response as evidence.

While often defended as crime prevention tools, both formal and informal reverse sting operations raise significant concerns about entrapment, manufactured crime, due process, proportional punishment, accountability, and who is ultimately targeted.

In many formal cases, individuals with little or no history of violent crime face extreme charges based on hypothetical conduct, with sentencing driven by quantities or circumstances selected entirely by the government. In informal cases, a person may face reputational, social, professional, or legal consequences based on situations that were deliberately shaped by others rather than arising naturally.

Across the country, formal and informal reverse sting operations have raised concerns about:

· People facing prison, arrest, reputational damage, job loss, or social consequences for scenarios that would not have existed without outside intervention
· Disproportionate punishment based on fabricated quantities, staged circumstances, manipulated interactions, or conduct encouraged by others
· Racial and socioeconomic disparities in who is targeted and how severely they are punished
· Increased risk of violence, escalation, or psychological harm during staged operations
· Private individuals or community networks creating situations designed to bait, test, pressure, provoke, or document someone outside a clearly defined legal process
· Informal investigations that blur the line between observation and manufacturing evidence

Stop Reverse Stings exists to:

· Educate the public about how formal and informal reverse sting operations work
· Examine the role of law enforcement, informants, cooperating actors, private individuals, and community networks
· Share documented cases, public records, research, and data
· Encourage transparency, accountability, and meaningful oversight
· Support informed discussion about entrapment, manufactured crime, due process, ethical policing, and reform

This project is independent and intentionally anonymous. The focus is not on personalities or politics, but on systems, tactics, evidence, public awareness, and accountability.

Justice should be based on real harm and independently occurring conduct — not crimes, evidence, or incriminating situations manufactured by the people seeking to punish them.