Here is a messy story about the bad management of confidential informants in Phoenix, Arizona. It serves no purpose to discuss the specific details of the case, but we need to learn lessons or we repeat the same mistakes again and again.

The first question that jumps out on reading this article is: Why does any law enforcement agency allow officers to meet informants alone? If an agency does there will be corruption of one sort or another. And to make it worse an officer of a different gender than the source?

On a deeper level, the question that springs to mind is how can the best-known law enforcement agency in the USA let something like this happen? The intelligence community spends billions each year on developing methods to collect information. Managing informants is at the core of collecting information for intelligence purposes. How much money is spent on research to develop new and better methods for recruiting and managing informants? And if money is being spent, why is good practice not shared across the law enforcement community.

Many law enforcement agencies are stuck in the Starsky and Hutch mindset with informants being manged as Starsky and Hutch managed Huggy Bear. It is outdated and unprofessional. There are much better ways to manage confidential informants. In these days of Evidence-Based Policing research needs to be done to identify what ways confidential informant management can be improved. And in the meantime, law enforcement needs to bring existing good practice together. and begin to share it.

And returning to the initial story It would be interesting to know how much training the officer had specifically on the topic of informant management or as this agency calls them confidential human sources.

Could this type of thing happen in your agency? \how much training have you had regarding managing informants?

If anyone has suggestions for good reading material on managing informants we would love to hear about them.