The Orange County District Attorney’s office wrongfully abused the role of informants in high profile cases. Informants are typically low profile criminals in prison who can be used to gain information about another prisoners who have not exercised their right to a lawyer. This informant can take the stand and testify in court against these criminals. However, the Orange County District Attorney’s office created the idea of professional informants. They bribed and strategically placed these informants to trick other prisoners to confess to their acts of deviance. This issue exists because prisons are overwhelmed with cases and informants can be used as a shortcut. These informants build a stronger case for the District Attorney’s office and allows them to close a case faster. This problem with these professional informants is that it is illegal. Informants were getting offered rewards giving them a greater incentive to lie and tell the District Attorney’s office what they want to hear. These informants are used over and over again each time decreasing their reliability. When the court asked the District Attorney’s office if this informant was used before they lied and said …show more content…
Since it was going on for so long unrecognized could it be considered a norm in this community and therefor would it be wrong? Among law enforcement this most likely is seen as a norm. However, law enforcement is not the dominate social group of America and these ideals conflict with the dominate group. The Social Conflict Theory would deem this is an act of deviance. To fix this mistake, a judge made the District Attorney’s office release all hidden files. This exposed the use of professional informants. The judge was forced to overturn convicted cases. Some murders walked free and other high profile cases had to be retried. This potentially placed dangerous people back into society. It wasted tax payers money because now they have to retry other cases. It also wrongfully convicted