Uneasy Truths; Criminal-Informants, Witness Protection, Trust and Legitimacy in the Policing of Organized Crime

Abstract

Organized crime is an elusive phenomenon. It is hard to see because the people involved are all acting so as to evade surveillance. Policy-makers interested in bringing ‘the truth’ about serious organized crime to light need to understand how police methods work. Internationally there is an increasingly call to endorse ‘witness protection’ which offers various deals, including clemency, to entice participants in illicit markets to ‘come out’ of the work and social environment that pervades illicit markets and to elicit incriminating statements on alleged offenders. Establishing the truth has thus become a commodity in a number of respects. Insiders who report to authorities can count on a return, sometimes in terms of clemency, sometimes with direct financial rewards, and, in the case of witness protection programmes, with new, clean anonymous identities. Criminal justice practitioners gain information useful in bringing successful prosecutions. The question is how far we should go in the prospect of making awards in the sphere of immunity, reduced sentences, or offering money. Should ‘criminal informants’ be able to claim a portion of the fine or financial compensation when they participate in achieving convictions? Do these schemes identify the right people for criminal justice intervention? How valuable is the information coming from people given ‘protected witness’ status? How are these schemes made accountable to public scrutiny? Does this kind of information help to create accurate pictures of illicit market participation? How does information from protected witnesses fit in to the process of crime analysis? These are all questions that policy-makers need to be asking.