Here is a breaking story about high level corruption and the management of confidential informants (human sources).

While our policy at HSM Training is not to comment on specific cases, especially when they are before the courts, what is concerning about this case is that the agency involved has previously been criticised for poor informant management. This does beg the question as to what has to happen before senior management in any agency recognise they have a problem that needs properly addressed

While not going into the specifics of the aforementioned case what we can say is that this type of behaviour cannot happen if an agency has in place (1) a properly constructed set of procedures for the management of confidential informants, (2) the agency has a comprehensive IT solution purpose built to manage informants and (3) officers of all ranks are trained and selected for the role of managing informants. These are the basics, the foundation from which all else follows. If an agency does not have all three corruption, inefficiency and compromises will all follow. As probably will a cart load of lawyers and numerous lost cases.

Small agencies can make an excuse that they don’t have the resources to do this. The answer is simple - don’t do it. Only an idiot rides a motorbike at high speed without a helmet.

When it comes to large police departments or federal agencies, there are no excuses. There role requires them to manage confidential informants in order to thwart serious and organised crime. They must put in place these three basic measures or the risks will inevitably become realities.

These risks are predictable and avoidable. Putting officers into bad systems - you will get corruption. Putting informants in to bad systems you will get criminality, lost cases and deaths. It is criminally negligent.

Many wonder why agencies don’t change? Change is difficult. You need someone in senior management with both knowledge and vision who then surrounds themself with people who have real depth and breadth of knowledge about the role, the relevant local legislation and what is internationally identified as best practice. All to often we get senior managers with limited knowledge about the area of business who then surround themselves with sycophants. Just because a Chief of Police managed a couple of informants twenty years ago when they were a detective and nothing wrong does not qualify them to make the type of life and death decision that is made regularly when dealing with informants. The intelligent manager is the one who recognises their shortcomings and gathers around them a pool of people with expert knowledge.

It is not one shortcoming that leads to the type of case mentioned above, it is a systemic failure.across the agency. What twenty years of auditing systems has told me is it is better to identify holes before someone falls into them, than pretending all is well and then trying to get a broken body out of a hole. Unfortunately in many confidential informant cases that hole is a grave.

If you want your intelligence management or confidential informant management system audited get in touch. We are here to help law enforcement and we will save you a lot of money. And we are a lot cheaper than paying lawyers after the fact.