Criminal Undercover Agents or “Bad People” Doing “Good Things”

Abstract

Information and intelligence have always been, and will remain, the most essential components of policing and indeed all law enforcement and security work, including the variety of drug control efforts. Sources of information are varied, ranging from everyday interactions of officers of the law with the public, anonymous reports, the use of paid and unpaid informants from the criminal underworld to law enforcement's and security services' use of agents. This presentation, based on interviews with “handlers” of informants who are offenders, who supply information and evidence against other criminals, and who may have been former comrades of the criminals, explores the dilemmas that informers and their handlers face at each stage of the operation from recruitment to operation in the field, until they “finger” their targets and become state witnesses. During each stage of the operation, agents' motivations, fears, sense of betrayal (being betrayed and betraying others), being snitches, the need to protect their identities, as well as their dependency upon their handlers, are the primary issues to be considered and resolved. Handlers may have to tolerate agents' commission of crimes during operations and often may also have to “treat” the informant's spouse. Borrowed identity, which is the main meaning and dynamic of the informants' actions and of any undercover work, will also be analyzed. This presentation, designed to allow for a presentation of relevant parameters so as to permit the comparative study and classification of undercover work by criminals, will also note critical unresolved issues in this area as well as suggest future needed research.