THE PROGRAM OF CRIMINAL UNDERCOVER AGENTS SOURCES IN THE DRUG TRADE

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 many and 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 the law enforcement and security services' use of agents. This presentation, based on interviews with “handlers” of informants who are offenders and who supply information and evidence against other criminals, who may have been his former “comrades” explores: the dilemmas that the informer, and the handler face at each stage of the “operation” from recruitment to operation in the field, until the agent “fingers” the targets, and becomes a State witness. During each stage of the operation the “agents” motivations, fears, sense of betrayal (being betrayed and betraying others), being a “snitch”, the need to protect identity as well as dependency upon the “handler” are the primary issues to be considered and resolved. The “handler” may have to tolerate the agent's commission of crimes during the operation and often may also have to “treat” the informant's spouse. Borrowed identity, which is the main meaning and dynamic of the informant's actions, and of any undercover work, will also be analyzed.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alex Hess

Alex Hess is a retired psychologist of the Israeli Air Force and the Israeli Police. As such, he was in charge of handling undercover police agents and non-police informers. He is now engaged in consultation and therapy.

Menachem Amir

Menachem Amir, Ph.D. (IL), is a Professor Institute of Criminology, Hebrew University, specializing in the mafia, juvenile delinquency, victimology, national and international organized crime, police violence, community policing and undercover police work. His most recent books are Force and Control: Police Violence Patterns and Issues; Organized Crime: Uncertainties and Dilemmas; Policing Security and Democracy: Theory and Practice, Policing Security and Democracy: Special Aspects of Democratic Policing. He is a member of the editorial board of Substance Use and Misuse, and a faculty member of the Middle Eastern Summer Institute on Drug Use (MESIDU) in Israel and in Italy.