Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Families & Youth

Attention is turning to student informants

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20/20 did this special feature on “Logan,” the U. Mass student who died of a heroin overdose after becoming a drug informant for campus police: The Dangers of a College Student Becoming a Campus Police Drug Informant.  U. Mass canceled its informant program after a university working group issued this critical report.

Reason just posted this story about Andrew Sadek, a 20-year-old student at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton, who was shot and killed after he agreed to work as an informant:  Busted Over $80 Worth of Pot, College Student Turns Informant, Then Turns Up Dead.

Florida might step up again as a leader in this arena.  Legislators have introduced bills that would ban the use of minors and college students as informants in buy-and-bust drug operations.

HuffPost on DEA snitching debacles

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In a two-part series about “the sketchiest things the DEA has done while waging the war on drugs,” informant debacles take the lead in this Huffington Post article.  Here are a few of the headlines:

-The DEA once turned a teenager into a drug kingpin so he could act as an informant.

-The DEA allows informants to break the law, but have no records as to how often it happens.

-One of America’s most notorious terrorists once served as a DEA informant.

-The DEA strung one informant along for 20 years with the promise of citizenship. She still hasn’t received it.

Student Informants

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A series of recent news articles have documented the use of college student informants by campus and local police.  A 20-year-old student named Logan at U. Mass Amherst was permitted to continue his drug habit, and keep the secret from his parents, by becoming an informant.  He died from a heroin overdose.  From the Boston Globe story, “UMass police helped keep student’s addiction secret”:

   Campus police agreed not to seek criminal charges against Logan or notify his parents after he agreed to become a confidential informant, code named “CI-8,” something Logan called “an offer I can’t refuse” in a text message to a friend. In December 2012, Logan led police to another dealer — who was immediately arrested and suspended — while Logan remained a student in good standing. Police even refunded $700 they had seized from his room, which he immediately used to buy drugs, according to another text to a friend.

At several University of Wisconsin campuses, police acknowledge converting students  into informants who have been arrested for drugs.  According to the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism,

  One UW-Whitewater student used as a confidential informant, speaking on condition of anonymity, says he was arrested for selling marijuana and ended up buying ecstasy. Within three hours of his arrest, he says a campus detective searched his phone, identified potential targets and had him sign an agreement.  The student, facing felony charges, says he made multiple controlled buys on campus.

These stories follow on the heels of developments at the U.S. Air Force Academy where a student informant program was dismantled after it was made public by the Colorado Springs Gazette.  Post here.

Air force academy informant policies ignite debate

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The New York Times has been following developments at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs after the academy’s informant program came to light and was subsequently dismantled. NYT story here: Informant Debate Renewed as Air Force Revisits Cadet Misconduct. The informant program turned out to be the impetus for the only three prosecutions of sexual assault in the last 15 years. The ability of the informant program to produce such benefits, even as it mistreated and eventually expelled its own participants, reflects the constant dilemma of informant use: is the information it produces worth its significant costs? From the NYT:

Defending the practice, a retired deputy judge advocate general Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper, said [] that the academy’s honor code sometimes had to be broken to expose crimes like drug dealing and sexual assault. … But the idea of having students spy on one another is controversial, with both alumni and experts on campus sexual assault arguing that it violates the honor code’s ban on lying and erodes trust among cadets.

Families sue DEA for informant handling policies

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From the Associated Press:

“The family of Jason Estrada recently filed a $50 million lawsuit against the agency, the second suit in recent months alleging problems with the DEA’s handling of informants. . . . Edward Quintana, 31, has been charged with killing Estrada. He also is charged with criminal sexual penetration of a child under 13. . . . The lawsuit and attached documents show Quintana became an informant for the agency in 2011 after Bernalillo County sheriff’s deputies served a search warrant on his home and seized nine ounces of heroin, $12,000 and three loaded semi-automatic handguns. . . . Another lawsuit filed last month said DEA agents paid a struggling addict in crack cocaine during an undercover investigation into a Las Vegas, New Mexico, drug operation.”