Informers

Policing, policy, practice

Roger Billingsley, Teresa Nemitz, Philip Bean

• Publisher: Willan
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134032624
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Criminology
• Index: Social Sciences

The police rely heavily on paid and unpaid informers: without them clear-up rates would plummet, and many crimes would remain undetected. Yet little is known about the informer system and how it works, for example: who are these informers? how are they recruited? how are they handled? who handles them? what sort of information do they provide?

Recent high profile cases have drawn attention to the use of informers, there has been a growing debate about the subject, and many feel that stricter controls are needed - but how is this to be achieved without undermining the effectiveness of the system? This is the first book of its kind on informers in Britain, providing an invaluable source of information and analysis from key authorities in the field.

1 Drugs, crime and informers

Philip Bean and Roger Billingsley

Informers, as all law enforcement agencies keep telling us, are central to policing, and especially in the drugs field. In respect of the USA, Jerome Skolnick reminds us that whilst the police can arrest drug users by cruising in unmarked cars looking for those tell-tale signs of dealing, the apprehension of one small-time drug dealer does not constitute a ‘good bust’ (Skolnick, 1967: 120-1). The drug squad detective wants the leading figure in the supply system, a ‘Mr Big’, and for that to happen some level of organisational penetration is necessary. Skolnick sees informers as a favoured method of promoting that ‘bust’.

For this and other reasons policing the drugs field would be almost impossible without informers. Drug misuse is a victimless crime; the drug purchaser is unlikely to complain about his supplier. Fortunately, at least from the perspective of the police, informers are generous with their information, whether of the types of drugs, of the structure of the organisation, or of the personnel who maintain it. John Grieve says from his experience as a police officer there is no shortage of information, or of informers. The problem for the police is to find ways to handle it.

If there is one thing true about the drug scene it is that it is imbued with treachery. You will discover that far from being secretive people will talk to you all the time, that you will start asking questions and people will answer them, and tell you about what is going on. I have never met so many informers that a drug field generates when compared to other forms of crime.

(Grieve, 1992: 58)

It is not just that the drug world is ‘imbued with treachery’, though that may be so; it is that addict populations, especially if they are street addicts, consume large quantities of heroin, are invariably unstable, and almost certainly heavily involved in criminal activity. Supporting a large drug habit requires ingenuity plus an ability to know where to acquire and sell stolen goods. During periods of withdrawal the drug user’s instability takes a more hyperbolic form; they will do and say almost anything for the next ‘fix’, including giving information to the police about their competitors. Similarly, whilst under the influence of drugs they may have long since forgotten where the truth begins or ends. Handling this type of informer is a difficult business, yet paradoxically the best informers are the unstable, for they are well acquainted with the drug trade and deeply involved in criminal activity. They may also hold influential positions in the supply system.

The question we want to ask here is: what impact do informers have on the overall nature of the drug problem? Or put differently, does the use of informers reduce the level of drug use and drug-related crimes, or does it increase it? We also want to ask about current police practices and about the direction they are likely to take. We think these are interesting and important questions given the way the supply system operates, with implications far beyond that of the drug user, and extending to and including other areas of crime.

Licence to deal

In 1992, whilst undertaking a study of crack/cocaine use in Nottingham, one of us (PB) received complaints from dealers that others had ‘a licence to deal’. They meant that some dealers appeared to enjoy a favoured relationship with the police, who in return for information allowed the so-called ‘licenced’ dealers to continue with immunity. The police of course denied they issued ‘licences’, but the term was used so often as to lead us to suspect that something of this nature was occurring. These ‘licences’ were said to be have been given in a variety of circumstances. For example, it was believed that certain clubs were never raided, or that certain houses were allowed to sell crack/cocaine without being ‘busted’. As one dealer said: ‘We had been encouraged by the Drug Squad to be used as a “crack house” for a three-year period. They offered us police protection but that disappeared when we stopped singing.’

There may of course be good reasons why the police did not raid those clubs which had nothing to do with granting ‘licences’ or otherwise – for example, inertia, or lack of resources. However, local residents reacted with horror at what they saw as the unimpeded growth of a local ‘crack house’ in their residential area. It was not just the disruption drug dealers created, and the corresponding threatening atmosphere, but a sense of confusion about police intentions. Some residents questioned whether crack use in Nottingham would have ever reached the level it did were it not for the drug squad and their policies towards informers.

Jerome Skolnick recognises that reports about ‘licences’ are not entirely without foundation but he says they are exaggerated. He says reports persist because those without ‘licences’ and those betrayed by informers feel the rewards given by their betrayers were higher than they actually were. ‘Typically the betrayed cannot bring themselves to believe how little they have been sold out for.’ (Skolnick, 1967: 126). Dorn, Murji and South would not agree, and talk of informers who continue to deal with the knowledge of the police – becoming what are technically called participating informers. They go on to say, ‘By selling relatively small amounts but making oneself available as one may later be able to supply much bigger amounts, trafficker informants put themselves in a position of being approached by other traffickers who wish to obtain large amounts.’ (Dorn, Murji, and South, 1992: 143-4).

The police recognise this, or rather acknowledge that their informers might continue to ply their trade, but a small-time dealer has the perfect cover to enable him to know what is going on, and may even know the larger dealers in the area. If ‘Mr Big’ is the ultimate prize ‘licenced’ dealers provide the best way forward.

The suspicions and accusations surrounding the so-called ‘licenced’ dealers extend far beyond providing immunity from prosecution. Some dealers, who were known as police informers, were, we were told, planted by higher level dealers, and their privileged position used by these higher level dealers to their advantage. That is, they were to learn of police operations, giving those higher level dealers insider knowledge of police tactics. Or, in another case we were told that informer dealers were encouraged to continue informing by other dealers so that they could also use their premises. Of course, the informer dealers had to restrict his information if they were to protect those who were using them to extend their activities.

Data on ‘licences’ was difficult to obtain and that which was available was mainly anecdotal, creating more of a set of tentative hypotheses than anything else. If ‘licences’ exist, as we strongly suspect they do, their impact needs to be studied, let alone their legitimacy. Obtaining that data will not be easy, but if one of the questions to be answered is to establish the effect of informers on police prosecutions, and crime levels generally, then the data becomes a necessary part of any detailed examination. If, as we suspect, something of this sort exists, then it is hypothesized that they increase the level and extent of dealing and help promote drug use amongst those who have not yet established a habit; it is after all those who are less sophisticated in the ways of drug markets who are drawn to these street-level dealers. All such dealing and drug use has to be offset by the arrest of higher level dealers. Even so, we suspect that the extent of use will be the greater and more than outweigh the advantages where ‘licences’ are provided.

The effectiveness of the drug informer

One of the questions we wish to explore is the extent to which informers are effective. A great deal is made of the way informers are used by the law enforcement agencies, and the accepted view is that they are a necessary, if regrettable, feature of modern policing. This may well be so, but how effective are they? We have already indicated that participating informers with or without their ‘licences’ to deal continue to commit offences and whilst doing so may make the situation worse. In other words, success obtained through informers must be offset by the offences committed by them. Clearly then, at this rather crude level things are not straightforward.

In technical terms measuring the effectiveness of drug informers involves determining what is called the absolute prosecution rate, or APR. The spontaneous prosecution rate, the SPR, and the participating informer rate, the PIR, offset this APR. That is to say, the total number of offenders prosecuted must be set against those who would have been prosecuted anyway (what we can call the spontaneous prosecution rate or SPR), together with those who were allowed to continue committing offences (what we can call the participating informer rate, or PIR). To find the absolute prosecution rate, or APR, the SPR and PIR must be subtracted from those prosecuted as a result of using informers. The APR is likely to be difficult to compute because the SPR is almost impossible to determine, leaving at best the possibility of a close approximation of the true figure.

In practice a less sophisticated measure of effectiveness can be undertaken using a number of different criteria. First, effectiveness can be calculated by the number of prosecutions the informer helps produce; this assumes that prosecution is the objective rather than disruption or obtaining intelligence. This is a relatively crude measure but valid nonetheless for it shows the strength of the informer’s activities. So, for example, if the informer system brings in a number of prosecutions, perhaps more than would otherwise be expected the system can said to be effective. This method does not of course take account of those who would have been prosecuted anyway, the SPR, nor of the PIR but it provides some measure of effectiveness, however weak.

A second measure is concerned with the quality of the prosecutions; that is where informers produce higher levels of offenders than would have been the case otherwise. Again, the same defects arise as in the example above, with the same advantages. A third measure is to count the amount paid in rewards and set these against the value of items recovered while acting on information from informers. This method was suggested by the Metropolitan Police (1998) but has rather more defects than those above, and is hardly realistic when considering informing on (say) paedophiles or other victimless crimes; in this respect it is interesting that the Metropolitan Police Informant Working Group has recommended that there should be regular monitoring of the informer system, and wants a further study to consider how cost effectiveness can be measured (Metropolitan Police Informant Working Group, 1998: 9).

Finally, another method of establishing effectiveness is to concentrate on selected types of offenders who are rarely prosecuted because of the difficulties involved in getting information on them, and determine the part played by informers. An obvious example would be where the informer was instrumental in penetrating levels of organised crime which would not have been penetrated otherwise. This measure is often used by law enforcement agencies as a justification for informers, but it too suffers from the same defects as the methods above.

Notwithstanding the absence of hard data, or the lack of sophistication in measuring effectiveness, the general assumption remains that informers are invaluable and an important investigative tool. As one American commentator says,

It is safe to say that 95 per cent of all Federal narcotics cases are obtained as a result of the work of informers. Narcotics agents… can uncover large syndicates selling narcotics only through informers and undercover agents who can ‘tip’ them off as peddlers and pushers. The latter in turn can lead agents to the wholesalers and importers.

(Quoted in Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems: 47)

Those favouring informers say that each case presents the possibility that informers will lead to deeper levels of penetration in a criminal organisation than hitherto, so that where the informers lead only to smalltime dealers they are quickly dropped. They want to use large numbers of informers on the expectation that whilst the majority will not aid materially the goal of eradicating the organisation behind the trafficking some will, and they hope that an informer can go beyond the superficial level that sustains their belief in the system (ibid: 50). Their aim is to move beyond horizontal co-operation (where the informer produces successful prosecutions of so-called ‘sidewalk’ level dealers), to vertical co-operation which reaches higher level dealers and ‘meaningful levels of crime’ (ibid: 49). Informers become the sina qua non of any large police operation, and rather than see undercover agents as the major investigative officers, supporters of the use of informers regard them as the key to any penetration of illegal organisations. They say undercover officers can rarely do this on their own.

This view is not universally accepted, for there are those who argue that informers rarely lead to the successful prosecution of the ‘Mr Bigs’. They believe that organised crime can only be stopped through extensive police work using undercover agents, and regard informers as superfluous. Critics point to the number of crimes committed by informers operating as so-called ‘participating informers’, for drug dealers must of necessity remain involved in the drug scene, and in practice this means they continue dealing. Critics say it means that the information provided is likely to be on other dealers operating at roughly similar levels, where it is reasonable to assume they inform to extend their own dealing network. It may be unfair to ascribe such motives to all informers at this level, but the police, sometimes from bitter experience, will know this is so. Leaving horizontal informers in the system usually leads to trouble. ‘Too often informers make cases against individuals of less criminality who would not otherwise be involved. In fact informers increase the total crime in narcotics.’ (Columbia Journal of Law and Social Problems: 47)

The case against the use of informers has been put in jurisprudential terms. Goldstein (1960, quoted in ibid: 55), an ardent critic of the use of informers, lists three reasons to be wary of them. First, he says police hesitancy to implicate an informer encourages others to be involved in crime; he talks of the manner in which the protected environment – what has earlier been called a licence to deal – cloaks not only the informer but those who operate alongside him, i.e. others dealing from the same premises. This, says Goldstein, encourages others to break the law. Second, Goldstein says informers are encouraged by the police to continue dealing and so maintain and actively expand their association with the underworld, where inevitably many become involved further in criminal activity. ‘This result is especially undesirable in the case of first offenders since they are the most ripe for rehabilitation.’ (ibid: 61). Thirdly, he says the practice can lead to widespread disrespect for the criminal justice system; that is to say, once informers believe that they can continue to commit offences all belief in the value of justice vanishes, especially that related to just deserts (ibid: 61).

This critique is sound in its jurisprudential arguments, and needs to be recognised and taken to heart – as it presumably has been by John Grieve when he says all informers should be ‘busted’ at least once a year to stop them getting out of control. The current trend, however, is to recruit more and more informers, especially in the drugs world where about thirty per cent of all informers used are thought to be drug informers. Dorn, Murji and South see the trend as being likely to continue, where the expanding field of drug use is likely to sweep up an increasing number of petty traffickers who will be induced to give information in return for promises of a lighter sentence (1992: 147). How to control these offenders, and meet Goldstein’s critique, must be part of any study of effectiveness, and needs to be built into any evaluation.

Modern policing, drug markets and informers

In the mid 1980s ACPO produced a policy for policing drug markets, the Broome Report (ACPO 1985, unpublished, but see Dorn, Murji and South: 1992). It offered a three-tier strategy. Tier 1, at the highest level was for the specialist police operators such as the National Crime Squad whose task was to deal with the top-level traffickers. Tier 2 was for the local drug squads and they were to deal with the local ‘Mr Bigs’, and Tier 3 was for the uniformed police officers who had to deal with local low-level street markets.

‘First we must have a strategy of preventing importation and distribution and this must be done in conjunction with HM Customs. Secondly, Force drug squads must tackle drug distribution where it has evaded the first level of control. Finally, all officers at Divisional level should seek to remove drugs that reach street level.’

(quoted in ibid: 210)

As a policy it was wrong in principle and damaging in practice. It was modelled on the supposed drug trafficking system which was thought to have three tiers, with the policing strategy designed to meet those tiers. The distribution system is not like that; the distribution system operates through a series of fluid networks rather than a unified structure. The other defect was that Divisional police rarely bothered to deal with street-level dealers, preferring to leave it to the drug squads, while the drug squads thought it beneath them to tackle small-time dealing. No one took ownership of the street-level dealers, and leaving them alone was a de facto way of legalising drug use. Fortunately, and not before time, the Broome strategy was discarded, to be replaced by a wide variety of methods, some of which we wish to consider here.

Following Broome, a major initiative was to set up drug wings for the regional crime squads, now the National Crime Squad. Their function was to concentrate on the major traffickers; they were staffed by police officers seconded from local forces and strategically b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Foreword
• Preface
• Editors’ preface
• Notes on the contributors
• Introduction
• 1 Drugs, crime and informers
• 2 Informers and corruption
• 3 The ethics of informer handling
• 4 Informers, agents and accountability
• 5 Informers’ careers: motivations and change
• 6 Gender issues in informer handling
• 7 Juvenile informers
• 8 Where the grass is greener? Supergrasses in comparative perspective
• 9 Managing anonymous informants through Crimestoppers
• 10 Informers and witness protection schemes
• 11 Regulating informers: the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, covert policing and human rights
• Index