The New Yorker excoriates cops in a long (must read) article about how they treat their snitches. The title says it all: “The Throwaways.”
Informants are the foot soldiers in the government’s war on drugs. By some estimates, up to eighty per cent of all drug cases in America involve them, often in active roles like [dead young snitch, Rachel] Hoffman’s. For police departments facing budget woes, untrained C.I.s provide an inexpensive way to outsource the work of undercover officers. “The system makes it cheap and easy to use informants, as opposed to other, less risky but more cumbersome approaches,” says Alexandra Natapoff, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles and a leading expert on informants. “There are fewer procedures in place and fewer institutional checks on their use.” Often, deploying informants involves no paperwork and no institutional oversight, let alone lawyers, judges, or public scrutiny; their use is necessarily shrouded in secrecy.
“They can get us into the places we can’t go,” says Brian Sallee, a police officer who is the president of B.B.S. Narcotics Enforcement Training and Consulting, a firm that instructs officers around the country in drug-bust procedures. “Without them, narcotics operations would practically cease to function.”
The article by Sarah Stillman tells it like it is, right down to making it pretty clear the whole war on drugs is about local cops profiting from federal money — and not much caring who they put at risk to get it.
Almost makes you feel sorry for the snitches. At least the naive young ones profiled here, who lost their lives to the cynicism of police, all for nothing.
(Tip o’ hat to Jim Bovard.)
“Many vice cops, in particular, argued that forbidding the use of juveniles as C.I.s would force them to turn a blind eye to young people committing adult crimes.”
There’s no such thing as an “adult crime” – there are adult criminals and minor-aged criminals, and frequently the minor doesn’t think at the same level as an adult. Separate the two again, and take automatic sentences off the books. Yes, it will take more work – and time – for both ‘law’ and ‘order’, but what is the purpose of the court system if not *law and order*?
Ever since the Miranda law was passed, law enforcemnet has endeavored to take back control over the ‘citizen’ – and has continued to get laws passed to its own advantage until it now has control over the entire court system, at the expense of ALL ‘citizens’.
“But even the revised version [of Rachel’s Law] promised groundbreaking rights and regulations for informants; officers were now required to undergo special training, and to take into account a new recruit’s age and emotional state and the level of risk involved in a given operation.”
‘Emotional state’? ‘Level of risk’?
How can cops properly gauge the emotional state in another person, especially a minor under stress? Stressful situations lead to a variety of responses and actions, often in the same person in a matter of minutes, often in cops themselves.
A risk to the cop is not the same as risk to a snitch. The risk itself can set up a reaction (emotional state) which throws the entire scenario out of balance, including what is remembered, and what should be said or done. The snitch is an amateur, and that is enough to negate his being there. Police work is not the place for amateurs for ANY reason, all the more so when _enforcement_ of the law is waiting for the criminal and he has nothing to lose.
Police ignore the obvious, such as threats in the McLean case, because they want the scenario to go forward. They want to placate the public (family or media) because questions, speculation, and publicity get in the way of their modus operandi.
Something for the aspiring snitch to keep in mind-you’re an inexpensive, disposable item. Snitch information isn’t all that accurate,either. Lotta wrong doors kicked in over informant-sourced information. The snitch takes on a lot of risk-but that comes with the territory.
Trying to feel sorry for the snitches, but it ain’t working so far.
Of course, elimination of the war on drugs, sex, guns and assorted other things would just about eliminate the whole rotten kettle of fish.
Want to feel sorry or sympathy or something for them, because I’m still human, but can’t and won’t, because they’re not.
Gotta recognize Reagan and what he said about Jeremy McLean though ““Anybody that Jeremy knew or came into contact with would have been suffering for it,” and declared, “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.”
Sad that a drug dealer turned murderer is the “hero” of this story.
It’s not necessary to feel sorry for snitches in order to give them a fair deal. Justice and objectivity are what’s needed in the legal system, and a very real reformation from the ground up. The War on Drugs started it all, from the top down; it’s time that “good cops” (who say they are in the majority) spoke up and refused to act on unfair and dangerous practices to we, the people.
Among other things, cops should send in their own informers, spies, and “snitches”. They’re in that business, not us, and they chose that life of danger; let them take the chances, not put young ignorant people in harm’s way over one mistake that ruins their lives forever – or kills them outright.
The use of paid informants is a highly questionable practice, at best. The ones I have know of were coerced into the position to avoid prosecution for crimes they had committed, and in one case I know of, planted drugs in a “friend’s” house for police to find in a raid. Can any faith ever be put in evidence that is paid for? How reliable can these “informants” be when their every move is dictated by a combination of greed and fear? Use of confidential informant’s is a further perversion of a “justice” system that is already just a crude caricature of what was intended at its inception.
“Without them, narcotics operations would practically cease to function.”
This would be a feature, not a bug.
And yes, I sympathize with the snitches. If I did to them what the cops do, basically blackmail them into risking their lives by setting up their friends to be blackmailed, I would justifiably be locked up for several years.
But the WoD is “for the children.”
“This would be a feature, not a bug.”
Truer words, LarryA …
“Without them, narcotics operations would practically cease to function.”
GOOD!
Like that guy in the Hunger Games said: It’s easier to control people if you give them hope”, as in “I hope I don’t go to prison” or “I hope that they drop charges on me.” So they entrap, rat out, and set up other people who are doing the same things they did. They could “man up” and do their time or skip bail and go underground but they wanna have their cake (liberty) and eat it too. Instead, some get killed by the people they’re willing to sacrifice for their own benefit. Sorry New Yorker, no tears from me.