Police Informer Research Paper

The increase of crime is a challenge for the police, the government, policy experts, and the society at large. The process of catching criminals is a tedious task and quite risky in terms of the possibilities of physical harm and violation of ethical conduct which primarily comes to the fore in using informers to extract information about criminals and punish them. Morality is one big aspect of the use of informers in extracting information about criminals and trying them for the crime. There are multiple implications such as those of the institutions of policing, the police officer, the informer themselves, and that of the ethical and moral assessors of the enforcement of policing policy. This essay will discuss various issues and aspects …show more content…
In the UK, there are legislative requirements for official usage of informers given the name of ‘covert human intelligence sources’ and they can work with the central and local government agencies, police and regulatory agencies. Some countries like the US have defence legislation for the suspect when he or she is provoked to commit a crime by immoral acts of informers, thus leading to the justification of the usage of informers in criminal cases (Weston, Lushbaugh and Wells, 2000). There is no such defence mechanism for informers in UK and this prevents them from safeguarding themselves in case they are subject to misjudgement. In cases where the trial and judgement is solely based on the information provided by the informer, it becomes a moral issue whether the subject or a criminal be hanged for the information given by the informer without the knowledge of the victim (Cooper and Murphy, 1997). Somewhere it also shows the weaker side of police when such informer based cases are cracked in no time and the actual efficiency of police is weakened. This also displays the cost effective ways in which the police acts and tend to showcase bravery and intelligence on the basis of the informer support. Bean, Nemitz and Billingsley (2001) puts forward the entrapment of informers and the possibility of police officers getting inclined to corruption along with the entire investigating agencies who could give in to corruption. Informers are individuals who are vulnerable to violent retribution, personal and social harms, etc. (Moran, 2010). This makes their role more susceptible to attacks and threats. Such a life also disallows then morally to live a free life devoid of threat and attacks. So these ethical issues in the use of informers and the policing responsibilities to free society from dangerous criminals is a legendary