Cody W. TelepGeorge Mason University (USA)

6 July 2011

Designing Randomized Trials of Informer Recruitment and

Management Policies

Police Investigations: Building an Evidence Base

“Although criminal investigation is a fundamental mission of the police, there has been surprisingly little scientific inquiry in this area” (Horvath et al., 2001)

Evidence-Based Policing Matrix: only 2 of the 103 total abstracts mention “detective”

In the U.S., detectives make up about 16% of sworn officers, but we know very little about the effectiveness of their actions, even though they play a major role in one major performance measure of the police, clearance rates

Police Informers: Building an Evidence Base

“Though widely acknowledged as vital to law enforcement, social scientists have largely ignored the practice of confidential informing.” (Miller, 2011: 203)

Evidence-Based Policing Matrix: only 1 of the 103 total abstracts mentions “informant” or “informer”

Some focus on cost-effectiveness, but research largely descriptive and focused on issues of threatened legitimacy as a result of close police contact with known criminals

Benefits of Randomized ExperimentsHigh internal validity- would give us new insights

into investigations and informers that are more believable than existing research

Helps inform policing practice and policy- would provide a better sense of what works (and what doesn’t) in terms of informer practices to increase intelligence, increase clearances, and reduce crime

Provide a “simple” answer for police leaders- statistics behind experiments are not exceedingly complex

Feasibility of Randomized ExperimentsAlthough there are potential ethical concerns,

experimentation is possible in the case of recruiting and managing police informersTreatment (i.e. investigator time) is limited and

so randomization could provide an unbiased way of using resources

Not conducting any rigorous research is perhaps just as bad- current practices are often based on informal policies or hunches that could be wrong

Nothing about an experiment would need to threaten the confidentiality of informers

What kinds of experiments? Recruitment experiments

Examining how different approaches to recruiting informers lead to differential outcomes in terms of number of informers recruited, amount of intelligence gathered, cases solved, and crime prevented

Management experiments Examining how different approaches to

managing informers lead to differential outcomes in terms of intelligence gathered, cases solved, and crime prevented

Unit of Analysis Experiments on informers could be carried

out on multiple levels of analysis

Perhaps the most obvious is at the level of the individual informer- randomly allocating potential or current informers

Could randomly allocate administrative units (e.g. prisons)

Could randomly allocate geographic areas within a jurisdiction (e.g. drug markets)

Outcome MeasuresNumber of informers recruited and level of

informer cooperation (legitimacy)

Amount of usable intelligence gathered

Number of cases solved (clearance rates)

Crime prevented (crime rates)

Costs and cost-effectiveness

Informer Experiments: 3 examples

1. Recruiting informers in a prison/jail setting

2. Managing informers through interview/questioning techniques

3. Recruiting and managing informers in crime hot spots

Recruiting Informers in Prisons/Jails Examine traditional informal methods of

choosing who to recruit vs. use of research to guide recruitment policies

Example: randomly assign prisoners to either a control group (traditional methods) or a treatment group that uses statistical evidence (e.g. the findings of Jeffrey, 2011) to guide recruitment procedures

OutcomesProportion of prisoners successfully recruitedAmount of usable intelligence gathered

Managing InformersCooper’s (2010) work suggests that many who

agree to be informers while in custody cease to be cooperative upon release

Could develop experiments to examine ways to better keep recruited informers committed to providing intelligenceThe impact of how investigators interact with

informers (procedural justice)The impact of bureaucratic control systems

(particularly on how intelligence is gathered and shared)

Managing Informers: Procedural Justice Incorporate Tyler’s (1990, 2004) research on

legitimacy and procedural justice into informer management procedures

Control group that receives “standard” interviews from detectivesE.g. may involve deception, typically more

confrontational

Treatment group is interviewed by detectives who have received special training on procedural justice and enhancing police legitimacy E.g. interviewing should focus on detective being

respectful, transparent, unbiased

Managing Informers: Procedural Justice There could be differences across the groups

in levels of long-term informer cooperation/compliance with police Tyler’s research would suggest that a

procedural justice framework might enhance informer cooperation

Could also measure informer perceptions of legitimacy of the police Ideally, if legitimacy levels are enhanced,

these informers may avoid future involvement in criminal activity

Informers in Hot Spots Policing

Hot spots policing has a strong evidence base for reducing crime and disorder (Braga, 2007)

Would combining hot spots enforcement with an explicit effort to recruit informers increase crime control effectiveness?

3 group experimental study of hot spots (e.g. drug markets, gun crime areas):Control group: receives standard policing as usual“Standard” hot spots group: receives intensive

policing Informer hot spots group: receives intensive

policing AND explicit focus on recruiting and maintaining informers in the hot spot areas

Informers in Hot Spots Policing cont.Officers working in the informer hot spots

group could receive additional training on managing informers and incentives to maximize informer recruitment and intelligence gathering

Outcomes:Would expect informer hot spots group to lead

to increases in intelligence gathered and informers recruited

Could examine experimentally whether there were differences in crime and disorder outcomes across the three groups

Conclusions Little or no rigorous evidence related to

recruiting and managing police informers

There are a number of ways we can think about running randomized experiments on informers

Experimentation is an important way to ensure informer policies are as effective and efficient as possible