Sometimes it is hard to get through to people how costly the mismanagement of confidential informants can be. This story relates to a police department that have paid out over $2.3 million dollars with a third case pending. That is a lot of money for any department to be paying out. And it could have been avoided if the department had invested in the proper structures for managing confidential informants.
Failure to Protect the Identity of a Confidential Informant
Here is a story from Connecticut about the compromise of a confidential informant through the allegedly corrupt actions of a police officer. The story relates how an officer allowed his girlfriend access to a computer that held the details of a confidential informant and the officers involved in a drugs arrest.
Confidential Informant Management - Police Chiefs, don't be afraid to ask for help
Here is a story from the Daily Raleigh News concerns alleged corruption involving a detective from the Raleigh Police Department in North Carolina and a confidential informant. This blog discusses the assistance that can be provided to Police Chiefs to avoid similar issues around corruption and confidential informant management.
Avoiding confidential informant related corruption.
There have been serious allegations of corruption in Detroit Police Department involving a narcotics unit and the mismanagement of confidential informant finances. There are always risks when it comes to managing confidential informants (HUMINT, Human Sources, Covert Human Intelligence Sources) This article discusses some of the ways to manage these risks.
Confidential Informants: Record keeping Free list
It seems that no matter how many times things go wrong with confidential informants, many law enforcement agencies fail to change their behaviour. Whether this is caused by a lack of either knowledge or willful blindness is hard to say but in the case, it is the former there are three key elements to manage confidential informants safely
