Tag Archives: Informants

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.

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.

 

After 16 years, superior court finds that police allowed key witness to lie in under oath

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As reported by KTVU, Caramad Conley was convicted in 1994 of two counts of first-degree murder and 11 counts of attempted murder for a 1989 drive-by shooting in San Francisco. Last week a superior court judge ruled to overturn the murder conviction after she found that San Francisco police witheld the fact that the prosecution’s key witness, Daniel Polk, was paid thousands of dollars in exchange for his testimony and that the witness was allowed by homicide inspector Earl Sanders to testify under oath that he was no longer in the witness protection program which he was receiving cash and other benefits from. Polk died in 2007. Conley has already served 16 years in prison.

Such cases illustrate the need to maintain strong management oversight of the use of confidential informants. Let’s hope that San Francisco police have improved their practices since then…

Over reliance on informant leads to retrial but still finds man guilty

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Watertown Daily Times has reported on the case of Michael Foster who was accused of killing Alicia VanVranken in 2008. The original guilty verdict against Foster was overturned because the trial relied too heavily on the testimony of a police informant. However, after finding an additional witness, a retrial concluded last week with another guilty verdict for Foster. Law enforcement needs to seriously consider the reliability and strength of informants’ testimonies before going to trial because, as in this example, failure to do so can lead to costly delays and case dismissals.

Confidential Informants – Where is it going?

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Much is being written about the ‘Confidential Informant‘ culture in the US and it is fair to say that in many ways this is positive.  However, as is normally the case, the negative has to be reported and inevitably it is this, which receives the most airtime.  Of course, using informants is not just an activity adopted in the US, it is without doubt a global culture.

The difference is the rules that determine how you use informants, particularly when it comes to managing and regulating them.   More important is how the risk assessment is considered and measured along with the individual’s rights and welfare.  Officers and supervisors have to ensure they have done what is possible to mitigate any risk.  The clear documentation of this is important, because if things do go wrong, and a positive trail of management can be followed, it will protect all participants; informants and officers alike.

In the UK the regulation of informants, or sources, is very robust. There is not only legislation, but very clear guidelines on the use and management of sources.  In the US, the recent introduction of ‘Rachel’s Law’ is being written into all Florida Police Departments’ standard operating procedures and of course, this brings more transparency and management. Other countries are also following suit.

What I have found interesting is that the use of informants is generally to achieve an objective; to prevent and detect crime.  Whether this is simply to record intelligence that can then be fed into the bigger picture, or indeed intelligence that a crime is about to be committed, the means to the end is just the same. Many officers who deal with informants are dedicated professionals with a high level of training. Unfortunately, I suspect where it can fall down, is the lack of ability to accurately record all the details when dealing with an informant. This is important because if clear data and structured information can be recorded and maintained when dealing with informants, the added protection not only to the informant but the officer is incalculable. This is reinforced by a firm but accountable management structure that would come with this type of regime.

It is becoming very obvious that the simple use of a spreadsheet or in-house Access database is not sufficient to manage all the information and requirements asked of officers involved in the handling of informants.  A move to a more robust and professionally developed electronic system is going to be necessary. In addition to this, the providers of these systems will also need to have knowledge not only of the electronic system requirements, but a strong awareness of the practicalities of handling informants and the infrastructure that supports the activities along with good comprehension of the business process. Strong and knowledgeable Consultants are going to be the key for this type of task along with the ability to ensure the product to process fit is exact.