Keeping it Confidential
The term confidential informant often conjures up themes from cloak and dagger novels, scenes from highly popular cop dramas or one’s favorite James Bond movie. However, active detectives and Department of Criminal Justice Training instructors both agree that confidential informants, when handled with care, can be a genuine asset to investigations.
By definition, confidential informants are individuals who provide information or help gather evidence for an investigation whose identities are protected, often to protect them from retaliation. Informants can be cooperative citizens who know of shady dealings happening in their neighborhood. However, often, they are someone, of questionable means, who is angry with a specific criminal and seeks out the police for revenge. They might be someone who has agreed to work with law enforcement in hopes of seeing their criminal charges reduced, according to DOCJT instructor James Wright. Still, others do it as a job just to be paid.
During his career as an officer, Wright says he would visit former associates of targets in jail and ask them to work as an informant, letting them know the agency would tell the judge they were cooperative.
“Of course, if you know there is a targeted drug dealer, you’ve got to think outside the box on how you get to them and arrest them,” elaborated Wright. “You could arrest someone you know is associated with (the dealer), that we know has drugs … Then say, “We know you know Johnny, who is selling. We will let the judge know you helped out.’ We can’t promise them anything, but if they have charges pending, some of them will work for us to help themselves out, maybe, in court … Most judges are good with it.”
The Right Source
“(Informants) have to have some reason to know or be able to access the information you want,” explained Richard Dalrymple, Laurel County Sheriff’s Office detective and Drug Administration Task Force officer regarding who makes a good informant. “You have to consider whether they can do what you want them to do. Does their history indicate that they would be able to live up to the requirements that have to be placed on them? And at the end of the day, would they be willing to testify in court?”
Good informants can come in all shapes, sizes and backgrounds. What matters is their access to information, regardless of whether they are a low-level drug dealer, an accountant of a physician.
All agencies should have written policies in place before beginning to work with informants, according to DOCJT Instructor Walt Ridener.
“Make sure (the informant) signs a paper agreeing to do whatever it is you have asked,” he said. “Jot down tattoo marks or (traits) of that nature that may come back into play. Make sure they understand what they are doing could be dangerous, and that they are going in under their own free will. Document everything, and file it away in a safe place.”
Managing the asset
After informants are signed on, agencies must go the extra mile to make sure they are reliable.
“One of the best tools to determine trustworthiness, one I used to use, was asking to see their cell phone and social media passwords,” noted Ridener. “If they are trustworthy, they should be able to give that to you. If they don’t, to me, they aren’t trustworthy and are probably hiding things that need to be out in the open.”
Undercover officers may initially accompany informants during a task, such as a drug buy, or record them via a video or listening device, to make sure they can do what they say they can do, Wright said.
Another option is to have undercover officers go with the informant, be introduced to the drug dealer, get his number and then make buys themselves. Handlers can exchange phone numbers with the informant, utilizing a line they can call or text.
“When they tell you something, you have to confirm that what they are telling you is true,” he said. “Like a lot of times, they will say, ‘This is where Joe Drug Dealer gets his (dope),’ so you end up following the target to that house to make sure that your informant was right… You keep a semi-close leash on them.”
Ridener suggested that, sometimes, following a confidential informant to make sure they are doing as they say, is beneficial.
Informants may lie, usually trying to get out of trouble themselves and not to protect the target. However, guidelines should be set early and, if they stray, the officers must be willing to rein that individual back in.
“Some days they will do well, some days they won’t. Those days you have to be able to address that and correct it,” said Dalrymple.
Professional relationships, one where the agency is in control, must also be developed. Dalrymple said he shows informants the respect he would any other person and is honest with them — sometimes they will go to jail on charges the agency has against them, and they will have to answer for the things they might have done wrong.
“I find people respect you more if you’re honest than if you lie to them or lead them on,” he said.
Avoiding Pitfalls, Perils and Problems
Never meet alone is at the top of most investigation professionals’ advice for officers working with confidential informants.
“You go with one other person, at least,” advised Wright. “Never make buys with just the informant. Go in as a team... Make sure there is a clear line of communication that everyone can see.”
Officers should also make sure they are recording all payments made to the informant by having them sign a receipt, while a witness is present, and then filing it away somewhere safe, Ridener said.
Moreover, information from a confidential informant should never be acted on unless corroborated.
“They may tell you one house has 100,000 pounds of dope in it, (but don’t) just react to the story they’ve built. There are a couple of cases, one in California, where (an agency) hit the wrong houses because an informant made-up information.”
A Wise Word
Handling confidential informants is less science and more art, according to Dalrymple. There isn’t an exact formula — it takes experience, management and someone in a supervisory position willing to tell young officers when it’s time to cut an unreliable source off and walk away.
To agencies burgeoning their use of confidential informants, Ridener says confidential informants are unavoidable for drug investigations, but they shouldn’t be the only tool.
“Use them to develop information but not as the sole basis of your case, because you’re always dealing with an element that’s (often) been part of the world you are investigating,” he said. “If you have someone addicted to a certain drug, it’s sometimes hard for them to break those bonds to those drug people. Sometimes you’ll get good information, sometimes you’ll get bits and pieces, and sometimes you’ll get untruths. You have to sort through it. Use them as a tool in your toolbox, but not the only one.”
