Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

International

FBI pressures Muslim immigrants to become informants

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This Buzzfeed article– Welcome to America–Now Spy on Your Friends — describes how the FBI routinely interferes with the immigration process in order to exert pressure on immigrants from Muslim countries to provide information.  As the article puts it, “[w]hen Muslim immigrants apply to become citizens, they often find the process delayed for years without explanation. Then, when they are at wit’s end, they get a visit from the FBI, with an offer they don’t dare refuse.”

See also this 2013 ACLU report, Muslims Need Not Apply.

DEA found liable for failing to protect its informant

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In an unusual case, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims has held the DEA liable for over $1 million in damages for failing to protect its informant, the “Princess.”  The Court held that the DEA “breached an implied-in-fact contract and its duty of good faith and fair dealing” when it compromised the informant’s identity which led to her kidnapping and the worsening of a severe medical condition.   Opinion here.

Professor Stephen Carter wrote about the case in this article:  How the DEA Ditched an Informant, and he writes: “It was the DEA’s repeated bungling that essentially blew her cover. Then, after her release, she developed a chronic medical condition that would require increasingly expensive care. The DEA refused to help out. She therefore brought an action claiming breach of contract. In particular, she argued that the DEA, in hiring her as an informant, had agreed to protect her.  It broke that promise.”

It’s an important decision because courts often find that the government does not have a duty to protect its informants.  See this post.

S-visas: snitching to avoid deportation

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The federal government has 250 S-visas (sometimes called “snitch” visas) at its disposal to award to immigrants who provide information about crimes. See 18 U.S.C. s. 1101(a)(15). There has been increasing attention paid to abuses of immigrants under this program: visas promised but never awarded, immigrants who provide significant information but are deported anyway, sometimes at risk to their lives. For more information see the following sources: Andrew Becker, Retired Drug Informant Says he Was Burned, NPR (Feb. 13, 2010); Helen O’Neill, Informants for Feds Face Deportation, Associated Press (2/13/2010) ; Prerna Lal, Reforming a Visa to Snitch, Social Science Research Network (SSRN), (May 1, 2013).

An alternative to snitching for juvenile drug offenders?

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Using juvenile offenders as informants can be the opposite of rehabilitation: it keeps young people in contact with criminal networks and can exacerbate drug use and other dangerous behaviors. See this post on a Miami juvenile informant. But a new “restorative justice” approach in Texas offers a different model, in which juveniles charged with serious drug offenses are offered a chance at rehabilitation and skills training. Here’s the NYTimes article: New Home for Juveniles Recruited to the Drug Trade. Almost no states regulate the law enforcement policy of turning young people into informants (see Dennis, Juvenile Snitches); the Texas experiment reminds us that the juvenile system is first and foremost supposed to be rehabilitative.

Miami New Times series on juvenile informant

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Enriquez Bosco was 15 years old when he became an informant for the police, providing information against one of Miami’s most notorious gangs. This three-part series in the Miami New Times documents Bosco’s travails–including drug addition, rape, and ultimately deportation–from which his handlers failed to protect him and in some cases, may have brought on. From Part 2 of the story:

Enriquez’s story begins and ends in Nicaragua, where he was exiled this past June. Though he had cooperated with Miami police to bust as many as 30 gang members — including leaders of the infamous International Posse — authorities allowed him to be beaten, raped, and exiled to the country of his birth with barely a mention of his service. His crime: a guilty plea to possessing traces of cocaine, a third-degree felony that required two days in jail. It resulted from a long-ago drug habit that started when police employed him to make a drug buy.

Juvenile informants often incur terrible risks with little or no protection from the legal system. For an indepth look at the phenomenon, see Andrea Dennis, “Collateral Damage? Juvenile Snitches in America’s Wars on Drugs, Crime and Gangs,” 46 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 1145 (2009).