DAs enable police informant misconduct
A ‘black box’: Mass. prosecutors rarely prevent police informant abuse. They often enable it.
By Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff.
Attorney Luke Ryan spoke with reporter Andrew Ryan about the use of confidential informants. The Snitch City series “begins in an American city that, like so many others, is enmeshed in the war on drugs. Here, police have been empowered to use confidential informants to take down dealers by almost any means necessary. They have invented CIs, had sex with informants, and used them to settle scores, protect drug dealers, and break the law.”
Attorney Ryan, who recently co-authored a textbook chapter on informants, explained that “we’re talking about places that either don’t have policies or nobody knows about the policies and nobody bothers to honor it. Nobody ever peeks behind these curtains.”
