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Who Really Gets Stung? Some Issues Raised by the New Police Undercover Work

NCJ Number
82789
Journal
Crime and Delinquency Volume: 28 Issue: 2 Dated: (April 1982) Pages: 165-193
Author(s)
G T Marx
Date Published
1982
Length
29 pages
Annotation
Without denying the positive aspects of undercover work, the paper discusses some disadvantages, costs, and risks which have received inadequate public attention.
Abstract
These are discussed with respect to (1) targets of the investigation who may be subjected to trickery, coercion, excessive temptation, and political targeting, (2) undercover police work, which may cause police severe stress, entail lack of supervision, and present police with unique opportunities for corruption, (3) informers, the weakest link in the system, who may exploit their undercover role in a variety of ways, (4) third parties victimized as a result of undercover operations, and (5) the potential of undercover work to contribute unintentionally to crime, through such factors as generation of a market or the provision of ideas, motives, or scarce resources. Recent undercover practices such as ABSCAM and police-run fencing fronts may be portents of a subtle and perhaps irreversible change in how social control is carried out. It is important to reflect on whether this is the direction in which we wish to see our society move. (Author abstract)