Use of Snitches Out of Control, Study Finds

Highly paid government informants are gaining increasing control over their handlers, and the laws to control the use of snitches are often flouted, a study to be released today shows.

After a nine-month investigation, the National Law Journal, a New York-based weekly publication, reported that most abuses by informants and law enforcement officials stem from the nation’s war on drugs. The paper said new forfeiture laws have made drug busts “a law enforcement prize, generating lots of cash both to pay informants and to increase their own operating budgets.”

It said mandatory sentencing to steep prison terms has created powerful incentives for criminals to take any steps to avoid jail.

The journal quoted federal Judge Stephen Trott of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals as warning prosecutors that criminals will do anything to stay out of prison, including “lying, committing perjury, manufacturing evidence, soliciting others to corroborate their lies with more lies and double-crossing anyone with whom they come into contact, including--and especially--the prosecutor.”

The journal found that rules for controlling the use of informants are often flouted.

“In day-to-day practice, there is almost no independent judicial oversight of the symbiotic relationship between agents and their highly paid snitches. And when the details of these shadowy alliances do come to light, it is usually because something has gone horribly, fatally wrong,” the paper said.