Here is a story form Arkansas about a sheriff who may have gotten too close to his informant. Managing confidential informants is a high risk business. Many officers have no idea how easily they can find themselves being corrupted. There is often an unhealthy combination of ignorance and hubris. Add this to lack of structures within an agency and poor supervision and it is a recipe for disaster.
Only members who have completed Department approved training may utilize confidential informants or maintain informant files
I was doing some doing some research on the web when I came across this quote “Only members who have completed Department approved training may utilize confidential informants or maintain informant files”. It is taken from Vancouver Police Department’s Informant Management Policy For those of you unaware Vancouver is a big city in Canada - think mountains and sea, with approximately 2000 sworn and unsworn members.
Case Law - Confidential Informant used, New Mexico USA
We are always on the lookout for material that may be of use to officers. This is a very clear explanation of case law that affects the use confidential informants in New Mexico specifically and USA generally. It goes to two issues whether or not a person was “seized” and “reasonable suspicion” based on the word of an informant.
Erik Scramlin (lawyer) explains both issues well. Thanks to him for sharing his insight.
It is always worth examining the nuances involved around using information obtained from informants.
New Australian legislation for managing human sources (confidential informants)
After spending over AUD100 million on a Royal Commission and years of adverse publicity, the State of Victoria has new legislation for managing human sources.
It is certainly going to change how things are done.
Unfortunately, this is not the end of the matter which began with police using a defence lawyer as an informant to report on her clients.
Safe to say it went badly wrong.
If you want to read the whole sad story visit: https://www.rcmpi.vic.gov.au/
The consequences of poor confidential informant management
Here is a story originating in San Francisco about cases being lost as a result of poor informant management
We have discussed similar cases over the years but these types of incident continue. This is not about individual officers. This is about agencies not having sufficient structures in place to minimise the risk of these things happening. Such systems take a bit of time and investment to set up and maintain but no where near the time and effort needed to clear the potential harm done by incidents such as this.
We could go on but where would be the point. If you want help ask us. If you don’t then accept the risk that something similar is occurring in your agency.
Informant Case Law - New York - Probable Cause
Informant Case Law Boston - Protecting the identity of a confidential informant
We are always studying recent court judgements with regard to protecting the identity of an informant. Here is the ruling from Massachusetts where the court ruled to protect the identity of an informant.
Officers managing informants need to read this type of judgement in order to protect informants properly.
The cost of poor confidential informant management - Invest now or Pay later.
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 officer in managing confidential informant.
Here is a story from Georgia that gives me some cause for concern. It is about a police officer convicted for misconduct in relation to the management of a confidential informant. While it is difficult in such cases to make a judgement without knowing all the facts the one thing that jumps out here is that it is agreed by all the officer’s intentions were good.
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.
Compromising a confidential informant - why it might cost you a shit-ton.
It is not unusual for people to ask why we recommend so much training for those involved in managing confidential informants (HUMINT, confidential human sources, CHIS). This week when I pointed out that we would normally spend at least two days solely on risk management this was greeted with incredulity. The question asked was “Why would you to that?”
Compromise of Undercover Officers. Tell me its not true
Here is a story from the LA times about the compromise of undercover police officers because their photographs were accidently leaked to the public. It is really difficult to see how this can happen unless there was total incompetence on someone’s part combined with a failure on behalf of the agency to have adequate systems in place to guard against such incompetence.
Setting up a Witness Protection Program
Here is a an interesting article on some problems Illinois seem to be having around setting up a witness protection program. The first observation I would make is that the Gov. J.B. Pritzker seems to have come up with a realistic amount of money for such a program to be effective. Witness protection is not a one way bus ticket out of town. My second observation is programs of this type are never easy especially if you are starting from ground zero.
Confidential informant corruption
Here is one of those stories where you just thing WTF! Our regular readers will be familiar in regard to our advocacy around the need for police chiefs to build suitable structures to minimise the risk of corruption when managing confidential informants while maximising the benefits from them. This of course assumes that the Chief is not involved in the corruption. A recent story relating to Payne Springs Police Department raises concerns. The allegation is that the Chief and one of her officers were using a confidential informant to buy and sell drugs for their personal benefit.
