Informant
An informant (also called an informer or, as a slang term, a "snitch", "rat", "canary", "stool pigeon", "stoolie" or "grass", among other terms)[1] is a person who provides privileged information, or (usually damaging) information intended to be intimate, concealed, or secret, about a person or organization to an agency, often a government or law enforcement agency. The term is usually used within the law-enforcement world, where informants are officially known as confidential human sources (CHS), or criminal informants (CI). It can also refer pejoratively to someone who supplies information without the consent of the involved parties.[2] The term is commonly used in politics, industry, entertainment, and academia.[3][4]
In the United States, a confidential informant or "CI" is "any individual who provides useful and credible information to a law enforcement agency regarding felonious criminal activities and from whom the agency expects or intends to obtain additional useful and credible information regarding such activities in the future".[5]
Criminal informants
Informants are extremely common in every-day police work, including homicide and narcotics investigations. Any citizen who provides crime-related information to law enforcement by definition is an informant.[6]
Law enforcement and intelligence agencies may face criticism regarding their conduct towards informants. Informants may be shown leniency for their own crimes in exchange for information, or simply turn out to be dishonest in their information, resulting in the time and money spent acquiring them being wasted.
Informants are often regarded as
Informant motivation
Informants, and especially criminal informants, can be motivated by many reasons. Many informants are not themselves aware of all of their reasons for providing information, but nonetheless do so. Many informants provide information while under stress, duress, emotion and other life factors that can affect the accuracy or veracity of information provided.
Law enforcement officers, prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and others should be aware of possible motivations so that they can properly approach, assess and verify informants' information.
Generally, informants' motivations can be broken down into self-interest, self-preservation and conscience.
A list of possible motivations includes:
- Self-Interest:
- Financial reward.[7]
- Pre-trial release from custody.
- Withdrawal or dismissal of criminal charges.
- Reduction of sentence.
- Choice of location to serve sentence.
- Elimination of rivals or unwanted criminal associates.
- Elimination of competitors engaged in criminal activities.
- Diversion of suspicion from their own criminal activities.
- Revenge.[7]
- Desire to become a spy.
- Self-Preservation:
- Fear of harm from others.
- Threat of arrest or charges.
- Threat of incarceration.
- Desire for witness protection program.
- Conscience:
- Desire to leave criminal past.
- Guilty conscience.
- Redemption.
- Mutual respect.
- Genuine desire to assist law enforcement and society.[8]
Labor and social movements
Corporations and the detective agencies that sometimes represent them have historically hired
Paid informants have often been used by authorities within politically and socially oriented movements to weaken, destabilize and ultimately break them.[11]
Politics
Informers alert authorities regarding government officials that are corrupt. Officials may be taking
The
Criminal informant schemes have been used as cover for politically motivated intelligence offensives.[13]
Jailhouse informants
Jailhouse informants, who report
Terminology and slang
Slang terms for informants include:
- blabbermouth[21]
- cheese eater[22]
- canary – derives from the fact that canaries sing, and "singing" is underworld or street slang for providing information or talking to the police.[23]
- dog – police forceswho specialize in surveillance, or police generally.
- ear – someone who overhears something and tells the authorities.
- fink – this may refer to the strike-breakers.[24]
- grasssupergrass[26] – rhyming slang for "grasshopper", meaning "copper" or "shopper",[27] having additional associations with the popular song Whispering Grass and the phrase "snake in the grass".[28]
- narc – a member of a specialist anti-narcotic law enforcement agency or police intelligence force.[29]
- nark – this may have come from the Romani term nak for "nose" or the French term narquois, which means "cunning", "deceitful", and/or "criminal".[30][31]
- nose[32]
- Red Brigades[35][36] and Front Line),[35] and people who delivered confidential informations to the authorities during the "Maxi Trial" and "Mani pulite" nationwide judiciary investigations.[33]
- pursuivant (archaic)[37]
- rat[22][38] – informing is commonly referred to as "ratting" in American English.
- snitch[39] – informing is commonly referred to as "snitching", term originally used within the African-American community and more recently associated with hip hop music, hardcore rap, and trap, alongside their derivative subgenres and subcultures.[40]
- snout[41]
- spotter[42]
- squealer[39]
- Nazi occupation of Denmark (1940–1945), the word has been used specifically to indicate the Danish whistleblowers, agents, and spies which informed the German secret police, the Gestapo, in order to undermine the Danish resistance movement.
- stool pigeon or stoolie[43]
- tell tale or tell-tale[44][45]
- tattle-tale
- tittle-tattle[43]
- tout – Northern Irish term for an informant, often one who informed on the activities of Irish paramilitary organizations during "the Troubles".[46][47]
- trick[48]
- turncoat[21]
- weasel[21]
- X9 - A slang term in Brazil, possibly inspired by the comic strip Secret Agent X-9.[49]
The term "stool pigeon" originates from the antiquated practice of tying a passenger pigeon to a stool. The bird would flap its wings in a futile attempt to escape. The sound of the wings flapping would attract other pigeons to the stool where a large number of birds could be easily killed or captured.[50]
List of notable individuals
- Nicky Barnes, head of The Council, which he would later testify against
- Whitey Bulger, Boston Irish mob boss
- Nicholas Calabrese, the first made man to testify against the Chicago Outfit
- James Carey, Irish terrorist
- Steve Flemmi, Whitey Bulger's partner-in-crime
- Flores twins Pedro and Margarito
- Nicola Gobbo, former Australian barrister who provided information on her own clients[51]
- Sammy Gravano, former underboss of the Gambino crime family
- Daniel Hernandez a.k.a. Tekashi 6ix9ine, American rapper, who testified against Nine Trey Gangsters
- Henry Hill, Lucchese crime family associate
- Frank Lucas, New York City drug dealer turned informant
- Joseph Massino, the first boss of one of the Five Families in New York City to turn state's evidence
- George Orwell, author of Orwell's list[52]
- Abe Reles, Murder, Inc. hit man
- Provisional IRA
- Joseph Valachi, soldier of the Genovese crime family
- Salvatore Vitale, former underboss of the Bonanno crime family
- Richard Wershe Jr. (commonly known as "White Boy Rick"), the youngest FBI informant ever at age 14
By country
Russia and Soviet Union
A system of informants existed in the
Germany
Poland
See also
- Agent provocateur
- Aguilar–Spinelli test
- Counter-terrorism
- Covert interrogation
- Denunciation
- Espionage
- Hollywood blacklist
- Pentiti
- Plea bargain
- Turn state's evidence
- United States Marshals Service
- Watergate scandal
- Whistleblower
- Witness Protection Program
References
- ^ "informer". Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved 6 June 2016.
2: one that informs against another; specifically : one who makes a practice especially for a financial reward of informing against others for violations of penal laws
- ^ "The Weakest Link: The Dire Consequences of a Weak Link in the Informant Handling and Covert Operations Chain-of-Command" by M Levine. Law Enforcement Executive Forum, 2009
- ^ "Pursuing strategic advantage through political means: A multivariate approach" by DA Schuler, K Rehbein, RD Cramer – Academy of Management Journal, 2002
- ^ "Reading English for specialized purposes: Discourse analysis and the use of student informants" by A Cohen, H Glasman, PR Rosenbaum-Cohen, TESOL Quarterly, 197
- ^
"Special Report". oig.justice.gov. Retrieved 2021-01-28.
According to the Confidential Informant Guidelines, a confidential informant or "CI" is "any individual who provides useful and credible information to a Justice Law Enforcement Agency (JLEA) regarding felonious criminal activities and from whom the JLEA expects or intends to obtain additional useful and credible information regarding such activities in the future."
- ^ Palmiotto, J., Micheal. Criminal Investigation. 4th ed. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2013. pp. 65–66
- ^ a b Lyman, D., Micheal. Criminal Investigation: The Art and the Science. 6th ed. Columbia College of Missouri. Pearson, 2010. p. 264
- ISBN 978-0-13-800011-0.
- ^ "Private detective agencies and labour discipline in the United States, 1855–1946" by RP Weiss. The Historical Journal, 2009. Cambridge Univ Press
- ^ "Judicial Control of Informants, Spies, Stool Pigeons, and Agent Provocateurs" by RC Donnelly – Yale Law Journal, 1951
- ^ "Thoughts on a neglected category of social movement participant: The agent provocateur and the informant" by GT Marx – American Journal of Sociology, 1974
- ^ Lactantius. "On the Deaths of the Persecutors".
- ^ "CIA Assets and the Rise of the Guadalajara Connection" J. Marshall – Crime, Law and Social Change, 1991
- ^ scc.lexum.umontreal.ca Archived 2010-11-10 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "A Conversation with Death Row Prisoner Stanley Tookie Williams from his San Quentin Cell". Democracy Now!. November 30, 2005. Archived from the original on November 15, 2007.
- ^ Mills, Steve; Possley, Maurice (December 9, 2004). "Man executed on disproved forensics". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved September 1, 2009.
- ^ "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CLAYTON FOUNTAIN, THOMAS E. SILVERSTEIN, and RANDY K. GOMETZ, Defendants-Appellants". Project Posner. Archived from the original on September 28, 2007. Retrieved May 28, 2007.
- ISBN 978-0-8223-3923-6.
- ^ Berman, Thomas; Sher, Lauren (May 26, 2010). "Etan Patz Case Reopened 31 Years Later". ABC News. Retrieved July 16, 2011.
- ^ Stutzman, Rene (December 27, 2011). "Wrong convictions spur Florida to rethink using jail informants". Orlando Sentinel.
- ^ a b c "snitch". Thesaurus.com. September 2023.
- ^ a b Wilmer, HA (1965). "The Role of the "Rat" in the Prison". Fed. Probation. 29.
- ISBN 9781449397784.
- ^ "The Origin of fink 'informer, hired strikebreaker'" by William Sayers. A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews. Winter 2005 Cornell University
- ISBN 9781906534493.
- ^ "The Intelligence War in Northern Ireland" by K Maguire – International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, Volume 4, Issue 2 1990, pp. 145–165
- ^ "grass". Oxford English Dictionary.
A spy or informer, esp. for the police
- ISBN 9780198257660.
- ^ Chicano intravenous drug users: The collection and interpretation of data from hidden Populations by R Ramos. 1990
- ^ Prison patter: a dictionary of prison words and slang by A Devlin. 1996
- ^ "Some ethical dilemmas in the handling of police informers" by C Dunnighan, C Norris – Public Money & Management, 1998
- ^ "nose". Oxford English Dictionary.
A spy or informer, esp. for the police
- ^ OCLC 1030395983.
- far right movement, and an upsurge in the use of politically motivated violence and state repressive measures. [...] The early 1980s were characterized by the appearance of the first pentiti(justice collaborators), waves of arrests and trials, and the incarceration of several hundreds of radical left activists, many of whom were sentenced to very long terms (22 years and over). According to available data, 4087 activists were detained at the beginning of the 1980s in prisons around the country, including a few hundred in maximum security facilities.
- ^ LCCN 2020050360.
- LCCN 2011009896.
- ^ "Speaker and Structure in Donne's Satyre" by NM Bradbury. Studies in English Literature, 1500–1900, 1985.
- ^ "Sociology of Confinement: Assimilation and the Prison 'Rat'" by EH Johnson. The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science. 1961
- ^ a b "Reflections on the role of statutory immunity in the criminal justice system" by WJ Bauer – Journal of Criminal Law. & Criminology, 1976
- ISBN 9780814758588.
- ^ "snout". Oxford English Dictionary.
A police informer
- ^ "Instigated Crime" by S Shaw – Alta. LQ, 1938
- ^ a b "Elevating the Role of the Informer: The Value of Secret Information". MW Krasilovsky. ABAJ, 1954
- ^ "On Truth and Lie in a Colonial Sense: Kipling's Tales of Tale-telling" by A Hai – ELH, 1997
- ^ "Telling tales in school" by A Minister. Education 3–13, 1990
- ^ McDonald, Henry (2000-10-28). "End of 'touts' in Northern Ireland". Retrieved 2018-02-01.
- ^ "The murky world of informers". BBC News. 2006-04-04. Retrieved 2018-02-02.
- ^ Prison ministry: hope behind the wall by Dennis W. Pierce – 2006
- ^ "De onde surgiu o termo X-9?" (in Portuguese). Super Interessante Magazine. 21 December 2016. Retrieved 11 August 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-691-16295-9.
- ^ "Lawyer X: how Victoria police got it 'profoundly wrong' with informant Nicola Gobbo". the Guardian. 2020-09-04. Retrieved 2022-08-27.
- ^ Ash, Timothy Garton (September 25, 2003). "Orwell's List". The New York Review of Books. Archived from the original on 2016-03-05.
- ^ Andropov to the Central Committee. The Demonstration in Red Square Against the Warsaw Pact Invasion of Czechoslovakia. September 20, 1968 Archived 2007-10-12 at the Wayback Machine
External links
Media related to Informants at Wikimedia Commons