slang
Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...
term, a “snitch”) is a person who provides privileged information about a person or organization to an 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."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 The term is commonly used in politics, industry, entertainment, and academia.
In the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, a confidential informant or "CI" is "any individual who provides useful and credible information to a
law enforcement agency
A law enforcement agency (LEA) is any government agency responsible for the enforcement of the laws.
Jurisdiction
LEAs which have their ability to apply their powers restricted in some way are said to operate within a jurisdiction.
LEAs ...
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".
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.
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
traitors
Treason is the crime of attacking a state authority to which one owes allegiance. This typically includes acts such as participating in a war against one's native country, attempting to overthrow its government, spying on its military, its diplo ...
by their former criminal associates. Whatever the nature of a group, it is likely to feel strong hostility toward any known informers, regard them as threats and inflict punishments ranging from social ostracism through physical abuse and/or death. Informers are therefore generally protected, either by being segregated while in
prison
A prison, also known as a jail, gaol (dated, standard English, Australian, and historically in Canada), penitentiary (American English and Canadian English), detention center (or detention centre outside the US), correction center, correc ...
or, if they are not incarcerated, relocated under a new identity.
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 rewardLyman, D., Micheal. ''Criminal Investigation: The Art and the Science''. 6th ed. Columbia College of Missouri. Pearson, 2010. p. 264
* 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
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
* Genuine desire to assist law enforcement and society.
Labor and social movements
Corporations and the detective agencies that sometimes represent them have historically hired
labor spies
Labor spying in the United States had involved people recruited or employed for the purpose of gathering intelligence, committing sabotage, sowing dissent, or engaging in other similar activities, in the context of an employer/labor organization r ...
to monitor or control labor organizations and their activities. Such individuals may be professionals or recruits from the workforce. They may be willing accomplices, or may be tricked into informing on their co-workers' unionization efforts.
Paid informants have often been used by authorities within politically and socially oriented movements to weaken, destabilize and ultimately break them.
Politics
Informers alert authorities regarding government officials that are corrupt. Officials may be taking
bribes
Bribery is the offering, giving, receiving, or soliciting of any item of value to influence the actions of an official, or other person, in charge of a public or legal duty. With regard to governmental operations, essentially, bribery is "Corru ...
or be participants in a
money loop
"Follow the money" is a catchphrase popularized by the 1976 docudrama film ''All the President's Men (film), All the President's Men'', which suggests political corruption can be brought to light by examining money transfers between parties.
Origi ...
also called a kickback. Informers in some countries receive a percentage of all monies recovered by their government.
The
ancient Roman
In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom (753–509 BC ...
historian
Lactantius
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325) was an early Christian author who became an advisor to Roman emperor, Constantine I, guiding his Christian religious policy in its initial stages of emergence, and a tutor to his son Cr ...
described a judiciary case which involved the prosecution of a woman suspected to have advised another woman not to marry Maximinus II: "Neither indeed was there any accuser, until a certain Jew, one charged with other offences, was induced, through hope of pardon, to give false evidence against the innocent. The equitable and vigilant magistrate conducted him out of the city under a guard, lest the populace should have stoned him... The Jew was ordered to the torture till he should speak as he had been instructed... The innocent were condemned to die.... Nor was the promise of pardon made good to the feigned adulterer, for he was fixed to a gibbet, and then he disclosed the whole secret contrivance; and with his last breath he protested to all the beholders that the women died innocent."
Criminal informant schemes have been used as cover for politically motivated intelligence offensives.
Jailhouse informants
Jailhouse informants, who report hearsay (admissions against penal interest) which they claim to have heard while the accused is in pretrial detention, usually in exchange for sentence reductions or other inducements, have been the focus of particular controversy. Some examples of their use are in connection with
Stanley Williams
Stanley Tookie Williams III (December 29, 1953 – December 13, 2005) was an American gang member and spree killer who co-founded and led the Crips gang in Los Angeles. He and Raymond Washington formed an alliance in 1971 that established the ...
,
Cameron Todd Willingham
Cameron Todd Willingham (January 9, 1968 – February 17, 2004) was an American man who was convicted and executed for the murder of his three young children by arson at the family home in Corsicana, Texas, on December 23, 1991. Since Willingha ...
,
Thomas Silverstein
Thomas Edward Silverstein (February 4, 1952 – May 11, 2019) was an American criminal who spent the last 42 years of his life in prison after being convicted of four separate murders while imprisoned for armed robbery, one of which was overturne ...
,
Marshall "Eddie" Conway
Marshall "Eddie" Conway (born April 23, 1946) is a former leading member of the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party who in 1971 was convicted of murder of a police officer a year earlier, in a trial with many irregularities. In 2014 he ...
, and a suspect in the disappearance of
Etan Patz
Etan Kalil Patz (; October 9, 1972 – May 25, 1979) was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch th ...
. The
Innocence Project
Innocence Project, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit legal organization that is committed to exonerating individuals who have been wrongly convicted, through the use of DNA testing and working to reform the criminal justice system to prevent futur ...
has stated that 15% of all wrongful convictions later exonerated because of DNA results were accompanied by
false testimony
Perjury (also known as foreswearing) is the intentional act of swearing a false oath or falsifying an affirmation to tell the truth, whether spoken or in writing, concerning matters material to an official proceeding."Perjury The act or an inst ...
by jailhouse informants. 50% of
murder
Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...
convictions exonerated by DNA were accompanied by false testimony by jailhouse informants.
Terminology and slang
Slang
Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...
terms for informants include:
*blabbermouth
*cheese eater
*canary – derives from the fact that canaries sing, and "singing" is underworld or street slang for providing information or talking to the police.
*dog – Australian term. May also refer to police forces who specialize in surveillance, or police generally.
*ear – someone who overhears something and tells the authorities.
*fink – this may refer to the
Pinkertons
Pinkerton is a private security guard and detective agency established around 1850 in the United States by Scottish-born cooper Allan Pinkerton and Chicago attorney Edward Rucker as the North-Western Police Agency, which later became Pinker ...
detective
A detective is an investigator, usually a member of a law enforcement agency. They often collect information to solve crimes by talking to witnesses and informants, collecting physical evidence, or searching records in databases. This leads th ...
s and
strike-breakers
A strikebreaker (sometimes called a scab, blackleg, or knobstick) is a person who works despite a strike. Strikebreakers are usually individuals who were not employed by the company before the trade union dispute but hired after or during the str ...
.
*grass or
supergrass
Supergrass are an English rock band formed in 1993 in Oxford. For the majority of the band's tenure, the line-up consisted of brothers Gaz (lead vocals, guitar) and Rob Coombes (keyboards), Mick Quinn (bass, backing vocals) and Danny Goffey ( ...
–
rhyming slang
Rhyming slang is a form of slang word construction in the English language. It is especially prevalent among Cockneys in England, and was first used in the early 19th century in the East End of London; hence its alternative name, Cockney rhymin ...
for "grasshopper", meaning "copper" or "shopper", having additional associations with the popular song '' Whispering Grass'' and the phrase "snake in the grass".
*narc – a member of a specialist anti-narcotic
law enforcement
Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term en ...
agency or
police intelligence
Police intelligence refers to an element of the British police. Staffed by police officers and support staff, its purpose is to track and predict crime with a view to curbing it. It is an emerging field that gained momentum after the National C ...
force.
*nark – this may have come from the
Romani
Romani may refer to:
Ethnicities
* Romani people, an ethnic group of Northern Indian origin, living dispersed in Europe, the Americas and Asia
** Romani genocide, under Nazi rule
* Romani language, any of several Indo-Aryan languages of the Roma ...
term ''nak'' for "nose" or the
French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
term ''narquois'', which means "cunning", "deceitful", and/or "criminal".
*nose
* pentito – Italian term meaning "one who repents". Originally and most frequently used in reference to Mafia informants, it has also been used to refer to informants for Italian paramilitary and terrorist organizations (such as the Red Brigades and
Front Line
A front line (alternatively front-line or frontline) in military terminology is the position(s) closest to the area of conflict of an armed force's personnel and equipment, usually referring to land forces. When a front (an intentional or uninte ...
), and people who delivered confidential informations to the authorities during the " Maxi Trial" and "
Mani pulite
''Mani pulite'' (; Italian for "clean hands") was a nationwide judicial investigation into political corruption in Italy held in the early 1990s, resulting in the demise of the so-called " First Republic" and the disappearance of many Italian ...
" nationwide judiciary investigations.
*pursuivant ''(archaic)''
*rat"Role of the Rat in the Prison" by HA Wilmer. ''Fed. Probation'', 1965 – informing is commonly referred to as "ratting" in
American English
American English, sometimes called United States English or U.S. English, is the set of variety (linguistics), varieties of the English language native to the United States. English is the Languages of the United States, most widely spoken lan ...
.
*snitch"Reflections on the role of statutory immunity in the criminal justice system" by WJ Bauer – ''Journal of Criminal Law. & Criminology'', 1976 – 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
subculture
A subculture is a group of people within a culture that differentiates itself from the parent culture to which it belongs, often maintaining some of its founding principles. Subcultures develop their own norms and values regarding cultural, poli ...
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish ance ...
term meaning "stabber", mainly used in relation to
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
. During and after the
Nazi occupation of Denmark
The German invasion of Denmark (german: Operation Weserübung – Süd), was the German attack on Denmark on 9 April 1940, during the Second World War. The attack was a prelude to the invasion of Norway (german: Weserübung Nord, 9 April – 10 ...
(1940–1945), the word has been used specifically to indicate the Danish whistleblowers, agents, and spies which informed the German secret police, the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one organi ...
, in order to undermine the
Danish resistance movement
The Danish resistance movements ( da, Den danske modstandsbevægelse) were an underground insurgency to resist the German occupation of Denmark during World War II. Due to the initially lenient arrangements, in which the Nazi occupation autho ...
.
*stool pigeon or stoolie"Elevating the Role of the Informer: The Value of Secret Information". MW Krasilovsky. ''ABAJ'', 1954
*tell tale or tell-tale
*tattle-tale
*tittle-tattle
*
tout
A tout is any person who solicits business or employment in a persistent and annoying manner (generally equivalent to a ''solicitor'' or '' barker'' in American English, or a ''spruiker'' in Australian English).
An example would be a person who ...
–
Northern Irish
Northern Irish people is a demonym for all people born in Northern Ireland or people who are entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of residence. Most Northern Irish people either identify as Northern ...
the Troubles
The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an "i ...
".
*trick
*
turncoat
A turncoat is a person who shifts allegiance from one loyalty or ideal to another, betraying or deserting an original cause by switching to the opposing side or party. In political and social history, this is distinct from being a traitor, as the ...
*weasel
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.
List of notable individuals
*
Nicky Barnes
Leroy Nicholas Barnes (October 15, 1933 – June 18, 2012) was an American crime boss, active in New York City during the 1970s.
In 1972, Barnes formed The Council, a seven-man African-American organized crime syndicate that controlled a signi ...
, head of The Council, which he would later testify against
*
Whitey Bulger
James Joseph "Whitey" Bulger Jr. (; September 3, 1929 – October 30, 2018) was an American organized crime boss who led the Winter Hill Gang in the Winter Hill neighborhood of Somerville, Massachusetts, a city directly northwest of Bost ...
, Boston Irish mob boss
*
Nicholas Calabrese
Nicholas W. Calabrese (born November 30, 1942) is an American former mob hitman, best known for being the second made man ever to testify against the Chicago Outfit. His testimony and cooperation with federal prosecutors helped result in the 2007 ...
Steve Flemmi
''yes'Steve is a masculine given name, usually a short form (hypocorism) of Steven or Stephen
Notable people with the name include:
steve jops
* Steve Abbott (disambiguation), several people
* Steve Adams (disambiguation), several people
* Steve ...
Nicola Gobbo
Nicola Maree Gobbo, sometimes known as Nikki Gobbo, (born 16 November 1972) is an Australian former criminal defence barrister and police informant.
Drug charge at law school
In 1993, while she was a law student, police raided a house owned by ...
, former Australian barrister who provided information on her own clients
* Sammy Gravano, former
underboss
Underboss ( it, sottocapo) is a position within the leadership structure of certain organized crime groups, particularly in Sicilian, Greek, and Italian-American Mafia crime families. The underboss is second in command to the boss. The underbo ...
of the
Gambino crime family
The Gambino crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as the Ame ...
testified
In law and in religion, testimony is a solemn attestation as to the truth of a matter.
Etymology
The words "testimony" and "testify" both derive from the Latin word ''testis'', referring to the notion of a disinterested third-party witness.
La ...
Lucchese crime family
The Lucchese crime family (pronounced ) is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City, in the United States, within the nationwide criminal phenomenon known as ...
associate
*
Frank Lucas
Frank Lucas (September 9, 1930 – May 30, 2019) was an American drug trafficker who operated in Harlem, New York City, during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He was known for cutting out middlemen in the drug trade and buying heroin directly ...
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English novelist, essayist, journalist, and critic. His work is characterised by lucid prose, social criticism, opposition to totalitar ...
, author of
Orwell's list
In 1949, shortly before he died, the English author George Orwell prepared a list of notable writers and other people he considered to be unsuitable as possible writers for the anti-communist propaganda activities of the Information Research D ...
*
Abe Reles
Abraham "Kid Twist" Reles (; May 10, 1906 – November 12, 1941) was a New York Jewish mobster who was a hit man for Murder, Inc., the enforcement contractor for Meyer Lansky's National Crime Syndicate.
Reles later turned government witne ...
Freddie Scappaticci
Freddie Scappaticci (born c. 1946 Belfast) is a purported former high-level double agent in the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), known by the codename " Stakeknife".
Early life
Scappaticci was born around 1946 and grew up in the Markets ...
, member of the
Provisional IRA
The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...
Genovese crime family
The Genovese crime family, () also sometimes referred to as the Westside, is an Italian-American Mafia crime family and one of the "Five Families" that dominate organized crime activities in New York City and New Jersey as part of the American M ...
Richard Wershe Jr.
Richard Wershe Jr. (born July 18, 1969), known as "White Boy Rick", is an American former drug trafficker and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant. The youngest known informant in the history of the FBI, Wershe became a confidential in ...
(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
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and was later adopted by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. In
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia, Northern Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the ...
, such people were known as ''osvedomitel'' or ''donoschik'', and secretly cooperated with law enforcement agencies, such as the secret-police force
Okhrana
The Department for Protecting the Public Security and Order (russian: Отделение по охранению общественной безопасности и порядка), usually called Guard Department ( rus, Охранное отд ...
and later the Soviet
militsiya
''Militsiya'' ( rus, милиция, , mʲɪˈlʲitsɨjə) was the name of the police forces in the Soviet Union (until 1991) and in several Eastern Bloc countries (1945–1992), as well as in the non-aligned SFR Yugoslavia (1945–1992). The ...
or
KGB
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
. Officially, those informants were referred to as "secret coworker" (russian: секретный сотрудник, ''sekretny sotrudnik'') and often were referred by the Russian-derived
Aguilar–Spinelli test
The ''Aguilar–Spinelli'' test was a judicial guideline set down by the U.S. Supreme Court for evaluating the validity of a search warrant or a warrantless arrest based on information provided by a confidential informant or an anonymous tip. The ...
Covert interrogation Covert interrogation can refer to several interrogation techniques. An example is the covert questioning of a subject in a neutral public place where people innocuously gather, with the intention of the unsuspecting subject not comprehending that th ...
*
Denunciation
Denunciation (from Latin ''denuntiare'', "to denounce") is the act of publicly assigning to a person the blame for a perceived wrongdoing, with the hope of bringing attention to it.
Notably, centralized social control in authoritarian states re ...
*
Espionage
Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangibl ...
Plea bargain
A plea bargain (also plea agreement or plea deal) is an agreement in criminal law proceedings, whereby the prosecutor provides a concession to the defendant in exchange for a plea of guilt or '' nolo contendere.'' This may mean that the defendan ...
United States Marshals Service
The United States Marshals Service (USMS) is a federal law enforcement agency in the United States. The USMS is a bureau within the U.S. Department of Justice, operating under the direction of the Attorney General, but serves as the enforceme ...
*
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
*
Whistleblower
A whistleblower (also written as whistle-blower or whistle blower) is a person, often an employee, who reveals information about activity within a private or public organization that is deemed illegal, immoral, illicit, unsafe or fraudulent. Whi ...