Ten things that should be taught on a basic confidential informant management course

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Developing  the ‘Ten Things’ series on our blog, international trainer and consultant John Buckley addresses the often neglected area of training for officers involved in managing confidential informants.

Managing confidential informants is often perceived as a task that any officer can do and that every detective should do. However, despite significant evidence of the importance of training for officers involved in this role many agencies provide only the minimum if any training and then wonder why it goes horribly wrong. Even in Florida where training for officers managing confidential informants is a legislative requirement following the death of Rachel Hoffman officers there, often receive only the most minimal of training.  Managers, often untrained themselves, do not understand the difficulties in managing a confidential informant or cite the excuse of not being able to afford the cost of training as the reasons they don’t provide it for their staff.   Where an officer has not been properly trained allowing that officer to manage a confidential informant is negligent on the part of the law enforcement agency. Training should be delivered by a qualified person, delivered against a minimum set of standards and delivered to all staff involved in managing confidential informants regardless of rank. A typical basic course will take a minimum of one week to deliver.

‘Ten things’ that should be taught on a basic confidential informant management course are:

  1. Civil liberties and human rights. Using confidential informants will always engage civil liberty and human rights; officers need to be aware what these issues are and how to justify their actions.
  2. Ethics and morals. Managing confidential informants is fraught with ethical and moral dilemmas. Only by training officers in ethics can these matters be effectively addressed.
  3. Corruption. Unfortunately, all too often officers involved in managing confidential informants become mired in corruption. Understanding the psychological process involved helps reduce the chances of the officer falling victim to this.
  4. Risk management. There are significant risks in managing any confidential informant. Officers need to be trained how to identify, evaluate record and manage the relevant risks.
  5. Legislation and the agency’s policies and procedures for managing confidential informants. Officers need to know the relevant legislation and need the agency’s procedures explained to them.
  6. Record keeping. Officers need to know what records to complete and the timeframes for completion of those records.
  7. Field-craft. Keeping both the officers and the confidential informant alive involves equipping all with the skills necessary to make contact and meet safely.
  8. Debriefing. Many officers have only the most rudimentary of skills when it comes to eliciting the maximum amount of information from a confidential informant. Training officers in ‘relevant’ interviewing skills maximizes the amount of information gained. Some common interview techniques currently in use are totally counter productive for this arena.
  9. Writing intelligence reports. Many officers do not know how to write comprehensive and accurate intelligence reports with the result that inaccurate intelligence is submitted and good intelligence is lost. Officers also need to be taught how to individually grade each intelligence report.
  10. Psychology. Teaching officers even the most fundamental aspects of the psychology involved in managing confidential informants will increase the confidential informant’s productivity and increase the control over that confidential informant.

John delivers confidential informant management training on an international basis to law enforcement military and intelligence agencies. He regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus software for managing confidential informants

If you would like advice or further information on training please to contact John at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com or call +1 703-326-1366.  Alternatively, please complete an ABM Software contact form and a member of our team will get in touch.

Using Juveniles as Confidential Informants

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In this blog, John Buckley, a regular commentator on matters pertaining to the use of confidential informants, remarks on the use of juveniles in that role. Referring to an article in the Detroit Free press dated April 19, 2013. John offers the following:

It is rare that I am drawn to give detailed commentary on a specific case, as the full facts of a case are rarely in the public domain and even if they are, objective reporting on the matter can sometimes be hard to find. However, the case discussed here differs from others in that the County Prosecutor has already raised concerns with regard to police actions and in my opinion the potential for serious repercussions for the wider law enforcement community are of a sufficiently high level to merit further discussion. The case in question revolves around the use of a 14 year old boy as a confidential informant, in a ‘sting’ type operation involving the purchase of drugs. The details of the case can be found at:

http://www.freep.com/article/20130419/NEWS/304190150/14-year-old-drug-sting

My comments, while obviously referencing this particular case, will be generic in nature. I will begin with three guiding principles. Firstly, using anyone under the age of eighteen (a juvenile) as a confidential informant, should only be done where the nature of the crime means it is both necessary and proportionate to do so. Secondly, using a juvenile in such a role brings with it additional risks, risks that need to be acknowledged and properly managed.  Thirdly, the first two factors do preclude an agency from using a juvenile as a confidential informant.

When it comes to this case, there two main concerns:

The first of these concerns is that when one objectively considers the age of the juvenile involved and the relative lack of seriousness of the crime being investigate, it is extremely difficult to justify that the actions of the particular agency were necessary and proportionate. Putting a fourteen year old boy’s life at risk for a marijuana bust is very hard to justify to any objective onlooker.

The second concern, and one which affects all law enforcement agencies, is that this type of action while carried out by one specific agency, raises public disquiet as to whether or not law enforcement should be allowed to engage in such activities under any circumstances.  This has the potential to lead to a legitimate tactic being removed because it has been misused.

How such operations come to be undertaken is more clearly understood if one analyses the various psychological factors that are likely to come into play under similar type circumstances. Firstly, where police have reason to believe that a person is dealing drugs to young people they will be keen to apprehend the offender and protect the potential victims. Secondly, they will probably have limited resources to carry out the investigation and be under a degree of time pressure to do so quickly.  They will quickly realize that easiest way to get the dealer is probably to do a ‘buy bust’ type operation, while at the same time excluding other methods that would take longer or cost more. All that then remains for those involved to do is to rationalize and self-justify why the method suggested is the only way, despite the obvious serious risk to the young person involved.  It is at this point in time that numerous psychological factors kick in, that enable all involved to think that their plan is a good one. These factors are well known to risk management professionals and include such things as an over confidence in one’s professional abilities, a willingness to take risks knowing that if it goes wrong there is no personal cost and a fixation on the goal regardless of the potential cost. Post such an operation the self-justification and rationalization continue citing the fact of the result gained while ignoring the costs which include, in this case, damage to the credibility of law enforcement as a whole, the potential psychological damage to the young person involved and the threat to their life, that they are now exposed to.

In a later blog we will discuss how juveniles can be used safely as confidential informants but for now what is offered is a thought to all involved in carrying out such operations or authorizing them: ‘If it was your 14 year old son how would you feel about a police department using them in this way?’ And those involved in the operation will immediately jump to confirm that they would; further evidence of the rationalization of something that the objective onlooker views as reckless behavior.

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus software for managing confidential informants and is the author of ‘Invest Now or Pay later – The management of risk in covert law enforcement.’

If you would like more information on using juveniles as confidential informants please contact John at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com. If you wish to see how the abmpegasus confidential informant management software can help you manage all informant operations contact Dawn Starling on dawn.starling@abmsoftware.com or +1 703-326-1366. Alternatively, please complete an ABM Software contact form and a member of our team will get in touch.

USA confidential informant management draws international attention

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A recent article published by the British Broadcasting Company (BBC) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-21939453  highlighted many of the concerns that have already been raised in the USA about the way in which confidential informants are currently managed in the US. What will be of interest to law enforcement is not the content of the report for similar issues frequently appear in US media, but the fact that the issues  raised have reached a threshold that they are of interest outside the US.

In recent years there has been an increase in the amount of public interest and scrutiny applied to how confidential informants are managed. Increasing public concern will dictate how law enforcement manages confidential informants in the future. If the experience of UK law enforcement  is anything to go by and all the indicators are that circumstances are being replicated then many agencies in the US need to take a good look at the structures they have in place to manage confidential informants.  The UK experience began with one or two ‘bad cases’ coming to the public notice, increasing criticism from judiciary and other public bodies, greater interest from citizens and more adverse reporting in the media particularly with regard to confidential informant related corruption and privacy violations.  In the UK this led to firstly the creation by police chiefs of national standards for confidential informant management and secondly the introduction of legislation pertaining to the management of confidential informants.

One only has to look at media reporting in the USA to see where there has been an increase in adverse comments about how confidential informants are managed to realize that there is significant debate going on. Added to this is the fact that both the Federal Government and a number of states have introduced legislation pertaining to confidential informant management and one can grasp that it is only time before other states follow suit.

There are a number of elements that form the core of public concern about how confidential informants are managed:

  •  The lack of accountability in regard to law enforcement actions with confidential informants.
  • The potential violation of citizens’ privacy rights by law enforcement when using confidential informants.
  • The risks that confidential informants are exposed to in return for limited potential benefit.
  • Concerns about the administration of justice with regard to the uncorroborated testimony of confidential informants and ‘big fish’ walking free because they have passed information relating to ‘little fish’.

A significant number of US agencies have recognized that the expectation that citizens now have in relation to the interaction between law enforcement and confidential informants. Such agencies have introduced specific training for their officers, new and comprehensive policies relating to confidential informants, and software to significantly enhance record keeping pertaining to confidential informants thus providing appreciably higher levels of accountability in all aspects of the business.

Other agencies seem totally unaware of the change in public expectation or are unwilling to invest resources to meet those expectations. Burying one’s head in the sand or crossing one’s fingers may seem like reasonable options but such an approach did not satisfy a court in Florida when it awarded $2.6 million dollars for the mismanagement of Rachael Hoffman, a confidential informant working for Tallahassee Police Department.

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus software for managing confidential informants. He has written two books on managing confidential informants and is an internationally recognized expert on confidential informantmanagement. His latest title, Managing Intelligence; A Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals, will be published in June and deals with the structures necessary for an agency to have an effective intelligence system.

abmpegasus is a modular piece of expert-led software that helps law enforcement agencies and police manage confidential informants, intelligence and covert operations in accordance with best practice, policy and legislation.

If you would like more information on the abmpegasus confidential informant management software please contact Dawn Starling on dawn.starling@abmsoftware.com  t: +1 703-326-1366 or complete an ABM Software contact form and a member of our team will get in touch.

If you would like advice or further information on confidential informant  related matters please to contact John at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com or contact +1 703-326-1366

 

New legislation will affect how confidential informants are managed in Washington State

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“As providers of the world’s leading software solution for confidential informant management we like to keep all our customers and potential customers informed of the latest developments in this arena, so sharing our unique expertise with the law enforcement community. In his latest blog John Buckley provides insight on new legislation being introduced in Washington State.

Following the murder of a confidential informant Jeremy McLean

http://tdn.com/news/local/death-of-an-informant-part/article_a181988c-4660-11e2-9be7-0019bb2963f4.html 

Washington Senator Adam Kline has introduced a new bill (5373) in the State Senate that will dictate how informants are to be managed in the future.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/documents/billdocs/2013-14/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5373.pdf

Many of the key elements of the proposed Bill can be found in similar legislation known as Rachel’s Law that has already been enacted in Florida following the death of another confidential informant Rachel Hoffman.  The legislation is likely to have a major impact on the interactions between law enforcement and potential confidential informants.  Agencies managing confidential informants are likely to notice a sharp increase in the records they are expected to keep and the amount of supervision that cases will require. Having said that agencies have little to be concerned about provided they are proactive in addressing the legislative requirements.

The following may help those responsible for managing confidential informants within their agency to be prepared for the changes that such legislation may bring.

  1. It is a good time for agencies to come together and consider setting up state-wide procedures for managing confidential informants. State-wide procedures create a much more robust regime and enable joint task forces to work together much more effectively and with significantly reduced conflict.
  2. Developing a more proactive approach to using confidential informants will increase the amount of intelligence that an agency obtains from its authorized confidential informants. Each agency should have a centralized register of all the confidential informants being used and the capability to task them against specific investigations. Such an approach is fundamental to the concept of intelligence led policing.
  3. With the advent of new rules and regulations it is a good time for house-keeping. The worth of every existing confidential informant should be evaluated and all re registered/authorized under the new regime. It is often surprising what such a review process turns up!
  4. Training is an essential part of managing confidential informants and no officer should be allowed to manage an informant without being trained to recognized standards. Lack of officer training is one of the main reasons that leads to the death of confidential informants. The setting of state-wide standards for training is hard to argue against.

While law enforcement has nothing to fear from legislation dictating how confidential informants should be managed, they do need to keep a close eye on the content of the legislation. Officers working on a regular basis with confidential informants will often see issues that the legislatures are totally unaware of.

For those readers outside the state of Washington now is a good time to take cognizance of the legislation in Washington and Florida, and make sure your own house is in order. These states are setting the standards that citizens expect of law enforcement and it is only a matter of time until you are facing similar legislation.

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus software for managing confidential informants. He has written two books on managing confidential informants and is an internationally recognized expert on confidential informant management. His latest title, Managing Intelligence; A Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals, will be published in June and deals with the structures necessary for an agency to have an effective intelligence system.

abmpegasus is a modular piece of expert-led software that helps law enforcement agencies and police manage confidential informants, intelligence and covert operations in accordance with best practice, policy and legislation.

If you would like more information on the abmpegasus confidential informant management software please contact Dawn Starling on dawn.starling@abmsoftware.com  t: +1 703-326-1366 or complete an ABM Software contact form and a member of our team will get in touch.

If you would like advice or further information on confidential informant  related matters please to contact John at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com or contact +1 703-326-1366

Major City Chief advocates key aspects of Intelligence Led Policing

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Our regular commentator John Buckley steps away from his usual topic of managing confidential informants to discuss the wider issue of intelligence led policing:

Unfortunately, there remain a significant number of senior managers in law enforcement who have no real understanding of the concept of intelligence led policing and how it should be used to protect citizens and enhance public safety. All too often we find managers who may mention ‘intelligence led policing’ in a sound-bite but then continue the conversation by demonstrating their lack of understanding of what the concept entails.  It is therefore refreshing to read of a Chief who not only advocates the concept but actually gets what it is about. In an article for the Baltimore Sun newspaper dated 31st March 1013, http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bs-ed-batts-homicide-20130330,0,535844.story.  Referring to ‘five strategic pillars’, not only captures the key points of intelligence led policing but pretty much gets them in the order in which they should be considered. We can explore how the Police Department’s strategy follows the concept of intelligence led policing:

  1. “…concentration on violent offenders, gang members and guns…”  The first thing to do in intelligence led policing is for a Chief to identify their policing priorities and make sure that the police department is working towards those priorities. Law enforcement has limited resources. They can’t do everything and it is the Chief’s job to decide what are the most important things for their department to deal with.
  2. 2.      “…community engagement.”   There are many who perceive intelligence led policing as being a concept that is in conflict with that of community policing.  In reality it is the opposite – intelligence led policing and community policing feed off each other. There should be no conflict.  It is from within communities that a significant amount of information for intelligence purposes will originate. If law enforcement officers are not in those communities then they won’t get the intelligence they need to protect those communities.
  3. “…creating an ability to produce more actionable and timely intelligence…”  Unless an agency puts in place structures to collect information, process it to intelligence and use that intelligence to combat crime it is failing in its duty. It should be noted that intelligence is not analysis of crime figures. While analysing crime statistics can help it should never be confused with intelligence led policing.
  4. 4.      “…encouraging better data-sharing with our state and federal partners…” There is little point in having intelligence unless structures are in place to share it internally and externally with those who can make use of it. All too often intelligence ends up in some detective’s desk drawer or hidden forever in a stand alone computer.
  5. 5.      “…ethics, integrity and accountability.”  Gathering and using intelligence by its very nature engages civil liberty issues and raises legitimate concerns with the public. Furthermore, many intelligence gathering techniques involve significant risks, all of which need to be documented and managed. Only by building intelligence management structures that operate on an ethical basis and keeping effective records can law enforcement hope to maintain community support for intelligence related activities.

Intelligence led policing strategy is a highly effective policing strategy. It can be implemented within any police agency and if done properly will enhance public safety and prevent crime. Unfortunately, while many are happy to talk the talk, fewer take the time to understand the how to actually walk the walk.

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus™ software for managing intelligence. His latest title, Managing Intelligence; A Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals, will be published in September. John can be reached at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com

abmpegasus™ is a modular piece of expert-led software that helps law enforcement agencies and police manage information, intelligence and covert operations in accordance with best practice, policy and legislation.

If you would like more information on the abmpegasus intelligence management software please contact Dawn Starling on dawn.starling@abmsoftware.com t: +1 703-326-1366 or complete an ABM Software contact form and a member of our team will get in touch.

Maximizing the benefits of confidential informants

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As a consultant, managers often ask me how they can improve the level of return they get when using confidential informants. Managing a confidential informant incurs significant expense, in terms of the amount of officer time involved in managing them and the actual rewards paid to informants. Add to this the inherent risks that the agency carries when using confidential informants and potential cost increases. Given the expectation that law enforcement is continually being asked to do more with less resources, it is hardly surprising that Chiefs expect significant returns for their agency when allowing their staff to take on costly and potentially high risk activity such as managing confidential informants.

There are a number of things that an agency can do to increase the productivity and maximize the benefits of using confidential informants (and the officers managing them):

  • Every agency should have a comprehensive centralized list of all registered informants. Too many agencies still keep informants in ‘silos’ with confidential informants being viewed as the property of individual officers or specialized units.
  • There should be a single point of contact from which all confidential informants registered within the agency can be centrally tasked to meet intelligence requirements. The capability should exist to instantaneously identify which confidential informants have the potential to address the requirement and the agency should be able to deliver such tasking at the touch of a button.
  • Confidential informants who are not providing intelligence that meets the Chief’s policing priorities should be deregistered. Meeting informants who aren’t addressing intelligence priorities wastes valuable resources. If a requirement for their services arises in the future they can be reactivated. Informants should be viewed as an integral part of any ‘intelligence-led policing’ strategy.
  • Officers managing confidential informants need specific training on how to interview informants to obtain the maximum amount of information from them. Obtaining information from a confidential informant should not be viewed as ‘having a chat’ but as a structured debriefing process.
  • The agency must have software that takes the information obtained by the officer handling the confidential informant and conveys it to an intelligence unit where it can be properly assessed, stored and disseminated to those requiring it. Paper-based systems are time consuming and do not have evidential integrity of software-based systems as information is often lost or misplaced,
  • The agency should have performance metrics in place, both for officers and confidential informants, which enable managers to readily identify who is being productive and what is being produced.
  • An analyst should be tasked on a regular basis with identifying gaps in the coverage provided by existing confidential informants so that new informants can be proactively recruited to fill the intelligence need.
  • Larger agencies should consider setting up proactive recruitment units with highly-trained officers to proactively recruit and manage confidential informants in organized crime gangs and terrorist organizations.

Most of these changes can be undertaken by any agency willing to make a limited investment for a significant return. However, there is little point in taking all the risks in managing confidential informants only to waste most of the potential benefits that confidential informants can bring because of a limited paper-based management system.

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus software for managing confidential informants and has written several books on intelligence management and confidential informants. His book ‘The Human Source Management System’ provides detailed insight on the proactive recruitment and management of confidential informants. John he can be contacted by email john.buckley@abmsoftware.com

abmpegasus is a modular piece of expert-led software that helps law enforcement agencies and police manage information, intelligence and covert operations in accordance with best practice, policy and legislation.

If you would like more information on maximizing the benefits of confidential informants or the abmpegasus confidential informant management software please contact Dawn Starling on dawn.starling@abmsoftware.com  or +1 703-326-1366. Alternatively, please complete an ABM Software contact form and a member of our team will get in touch.

 

10 things every officer should know about managing confidential informants.

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Today marks a new feature on ABM’s crime and intelligence blog which will be known as the 10 Things column. Introducing our debut column, ABM’s Managing Director, Iain Moffat, commented: “ABM have always asked professionals in the law enforcement field to tell us what they wanted in our products. Over the years we have incorporated this advice to build a suite of world-class software that meets the changing needs of our clients. As a company, we continue to be expert-led, seeking out best practice wherever we can find it and passing that knowledge back to the law enforcement community we serve. I hope that those reading the column in future months benefit from it.”

Our first 10 Things blog is from one of our regular contributors, John Buckley.

10 things every officer should know about managing confidential informants.

  1. If you haven’t been trained to do it, don’t do it.
  2. Make sure you know your agency’s confidential informant policy and stick to it.
  3. Always document who the confidential informant is and get management approval to meet with them.
  4. Always tell a supervisor exactly what you are doing with the confidential informant.
  5. Keep comprehensive records of every contact you have with the confidential informant.
  6.  Never meet the confidential informant on your own.
  7. Always make sure a colleague witnesses any payment and never use your own money.
  8. Report accurately what they say, not what you would like them to have said.
  9. Be careful – they may be a lot smarter than you are.
  10. Think safety all the time – yours and theirs.

Managing confidential informants is a high risk business. These few simple tips will keep law enforcement officers and their agencies and citizens safer. The lessons advocated here have been gleaned through experience and many of the issues highlighted in our previous blog posts could have been avoided, had these rules been adhered to.

The importance of auditing confidential informants and informant systems

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In this blog confidential informant management expert and ABM Software Consultant, John Buckley, discusses the need for auditing confidential informant systems and informants.

Auditing confidential informants and systems

Every six to twelve months most of us will take our car along to a garage and have it serviced to check it is running OK and to have the mechanic carry out routine maintenance. After all, failure to perform this relatively simple task has the potential to leave us with a car that is uneconomical to run or, even worse, a car that isn’t running at all.  In the worst-case scenario this simple neglect can leave us driving a car that fails us at a critical time and which could potentially lead to a fatality.

The same standard applies to managing confidential informants; if there is not a regular, independent audit of each informant and of the informant management system then problems will occur. Unfortunately, sometimes the consequences will be significant and irreparable harm is caused.

6 key principles that need to be applied when auditing a law enforcement agency’s confidential informant system:

  1. Start by reviewing everything. Chances are it has never been done and it is often easier and quicker to begin with a whole system review. Such a review should focus on policy, training and record keeping.
  2. Review every informant that has been registered.  The software used for confidential informant management should be able to give the reviewer various performance metrics at the touch of a button in much the same way as a mechanic uses computerized diagnostics on a car. If the informant is not addressing the priorities the chief has set then de-register them and tell them you have done so.
  3. Review all the risks associated with the informant – they should all be documented together with the risk management measures in place. If there are too many risks associated with the informant that can’t be managed, de-register them and inform them that they no longer work for the agency.
  4. Reviews should be carried out by someone independent of the management of each informant. Those directly involved in the case regardless of rank are too close to be objective. If you are reviewing your agency’s whole system bringing someone from outside the agency can be a worthy investment. A quid pro quo exchange with a neighboring agency can often be adopted, provided there is sufficient expertise.
  5. Adopt a flexible approach to problems with officers; their faults may be a failure in the training they have received or in lack of clarity with the agency’s procedures. However, if there is deliberate wrongdoing, ensure you pursue it with the utmost vigour.
  6. Set mandatory review dates for supervisors to review every informant and carry out random independent audits.

The cost of a confidential informant audit
Just as a visit to a mechanic involves expenditure so will any audit of an individual confidential informant or the informant management system as a whole. However, the cost of an audit is likely to be significantly less than any failure that will, without doubt, occur the longer that audit and maintenance are delayed. After all who would drive a car without getting it checked regularly by a mechanic and who would drive a car without regular maintenance?

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus – the world’s leading law enforcement software for managing intelligence, undercover operations and confidential informants – and has written several books on intelligence management and informants. His latest book, Managing Intelligence; a Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals, will be published in June.

If you require any further details on how to carry out an audit please don’t hesitate to contact our US sales office on +1 703-326-1366 or email John directly at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com Alternatively, please download our confidential informant audit questionnaire.

 

How to manage citizen informants

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Lynchburg Police Department in Virginia recently publicized a scheme where they are using ‘concerned reliable citizens’ to provide the police department with information on drug activity.

In this blog ABM Software Consultant and confidential informant management expert, John Buckley, admits that while such schemes can have benefits they also carry risks that are not often apparent. John also offers expert advice on managing citizen informants.

Encouraging citizens to pass information on criminality to law enforcement is a necessary and commendable action for any police department to undertake. However, with any such scheme it is vital that the agency creates structures to adequately protect the citizens passing on the information and to ensure that they gain maximum benefit for the efforts they make and the risks they undertake.

 

advice on using citizen informants

What law enforcement agencies should consider when deciding whether to use citizen informants 

One of the first aspects that needs considered is the ability of the law enforcement agency to protect those passing the information and from this standpoint a myriad of questions arise. Does the agency have specific procedures for managing such people? Have the officers involved received adequate training for their role? Does the agency have identified structures to record all details of the history of the agency’s relationship with these individuals and the contact the agency has had with them? What risk assessments are carried out with regard to the safety of these people and how are those risks subsequently managed?

Moving on from these initial considerations it is important to consider whether or not the citizen has been made aware of the risks they are taking and what instruction they have been given in regard to them avoiding self compromise? It is far from unusual for a person unfamiliar with criminality to compromise themselves through careless talk or action. A simple question such as “who have you told you are helping the police?” will often reveal the fact that they have told a significant number of people they believe can be trusted. Carelessness in such regard will often lead to the criminals finding out the person’s role and result in them being threatened or attacked. This then begs the question “then what?” Does the agency have a mechanism to protect the person? Does it operate a witness protection-style scheme or will the concerned citizen, in the event of a compromise, be left to fend for themselves?

A third concern with regard to such a program relates to how effectively the information from such citizens is managed and exploited. Does the agency have identified policing priorities and is the information collected to address these priorities or is the agency led, not by a structured intelligence-based approach, but by knee jerk responses to reports by citizens? It is easy to end up being led by the informant as opposed to by what the Chief has set out as the priorities for the agency.

It is a good thing for an agency to be proactive in maximizing the information they receive from citizens but a failure to do it effectively reduces the benefits and a failure to do it safely costs lives.

John regularly advises ABM in relation to the development of abmpegasus – the world’s leading software for managing confidential informants – and has written several books on intelligence management and confidential informants. His latest title, Managing Intelligence; a Guide for Law Enforcement Professionals, will be published in June.

If you would like further information on abmpegasus or advice on using citizen informants please email dawn.starling@abmsoftware.com or, alternatively, please contact our sales office on +1 703 326 366 to arrange a demonstration.

 

How to address the problem of confidential informant ‘agency shopping’

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Addressing another of the concerns raised at the USA Trade & Investment breakfast seminars in Atlanta and Miami last week, confidential informant expert John Buckley advised attendees on how to tackle the problem of confidential informant ‘agency shopping’ across different agencies for the best deal.

Beginning by explaining the risks that were created, John highlighted concerns around officer safety, the distorted intelligence picture that ensues from this activity and the potential damage that could be done to the reputation of an agency and to subsequent prosecution cases. He continued that the extent and depth of the problem of informant agency shopping was often not fully understood. Many law enforcement agencies do not have structures within their own agency to stop an informant giving the same information to different members of that agency, let alone having measures in place to reduce the chances of an informant successfully agency shopping with different police forces in the same geographical area.

How law enforcement agencies can tackle the problem of confidential informant agency shopping

 

Although many involved in managing informants are aware that the problem of confidential informant ‘agency shopping’ exists, a lot of police officers are often not in a position to rectify it. To help address the growing concern, John provided several solutions on how the problem could be managed:

 

  1. Firstly, each agency must have robust procedures in place to make sure that all confidential informants, managed by any member of that law enforcement agency are properly registered with the force, in a central register.
  2. There must be agreements and structures between neighbouring law enforcement agencies that allow trusted parties to cross check all registered informants to identify where an informant is passing information to more than one agency. Such structures can often only be put in place with the agreement of the Chief or Sherriff but often fly below their radar until something goes wrong. Those with the knowledge need to make senior management aware of the risks involved and the mitigation needed.
  3. Records must be kept relating to where a person has been identified as trying to provide the same information to more than one agency.
  4. Standardised reward mechanisms should be created within a geographical area of operation ensuring that payments for information received become standardised thus removing one of the motivators for shopping around.
  5. Having centralised intelligence management structures also helps to identify where very similar information is coming from a number of different officers, a potential indicator that a confidential informant is selling his wares to different buyers.
  6. Accepting that there is often mistrust amongst agencies, all involved must seek to identify a ‘trusted’ agency that can hold a centralised register in a secure manner or one that can facilitate the de-confliction required. Advances in technology now make this much easier to achieve to everyone’s satisfaction as a computer can identify potential duplicate registrations without the need for human examination by third parties. Notifications can then be sent to both parties who have registered the informant.

John highlights that eliminating informant agency shopping and ensuring that all information is collected and processed in a professional manner is important if public confidence is to be maintained. In a later blog John will explain the real benefits of regionalised informant management structures and dispel many of the concerns that officers often have about such solutions.

If you would like advice or further information on tackling the problem of confidential informant ‘agency shopping’ please to contact John at john.buckley@abmsoftware.com or contact +1 703-326-1366