Police Training, Human Rights and getting the basics right.

When it comes to providing good training to law enforcement there is always one critical aspect to decide: What do you include and what to leave out? The very nature of law enforcement means that there is always a huge amount of material to teach, and a limited amount of time in which to deliver that training. Deciding what must be included in training and what we can afford to leave out can be very difficult. It is relatively rare for there to be a public discussion on what was or what was not addressed in police training, however, this is discussed in an article in the UK's Guardian newspaper. 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/13/british-police-trainers-ignore-human-rights-abuses-bahrain

The discussion focuses on an agreement between The UK's College of Policing and Bahrain's Ministry of Interior and relates to the supply of training by the College.  Setting aside the fact that any clear link to covert training, as mentioned in the news article,  is far from apparent, this should not detract from the learning that can be obtained from the content.

The issue of real interest is why any mention of 'Human Rights' was omitted from the agreement between the two parties. [It should be noted that the  said agreement remains confidential and that in order to discuss the article content, one has to accept that what the Guardian has said in relation to its content, is accurate.]   The concern raised in this article is that there was no mention was made of Human Rights content in the training agreement . If that is correct it is a serious omission.

There are a number of core themes that should run through all police training regardless of what is being trained and to whom. These include:

1. Human Rights.
2. Ethics. 
3. Diversity.

These topics should be covered in the training objectives for any course, both implicitly and explicitly. They are essential content for all police training. All UK police training should include these, as should any training that is being delivered outside the UK but paid for by UK taxpayers.  Any trainer delivering training on police course should be tested on their knowledge of these subjects, before they are allowed to deliver the training. Unfortunately this does not always happen.  Even if the trainers do include human rights content, they often omit to write down that their training includes some essential aspects, for example, human rights. 

There are two lessons for those involved in police training, to take away from this article:

1. Include human rights, ethics and diversity in all police training.
2. Write down they will be included  and how the training will include them. 

It is unfortunate , given the fact that UK policing leads the world in many of these subjects, that such a simple omission, such as that referred to in the article, can over-shadow all the other good that UK police training has achieved especially internationally.

If you are a police trainer, or  involved in curriculum development for police training, and have any questions about how to integrate human rights training as a core theme please get in contact with us. 

Managing confidential informant funds

It is 2016 and the days of paying confidential informants without having a system which can be audited should be long gone.  Floyd County Sheriff's Department in New Albany, Indiana were audited recently in relation to managing funds relating to confidential informants. The audit should raise concerns with any one reading it given the substantial sums of money involved.

https://oig.justice.gov/reports/2016/g5016006.pdf

There are many reasons why money used to pay confidential informants needs to be highly regulated. Here are a few.

1. There is a very high risk of officers becoming corrupted when dealing with confidential informants. Allowing them access to money without there being in place a strict regime just creates an environment, where it is much more likely to happen. The temptation and opportunity are a recipe for disaster. 
2. If there is not a strict policy on managing informant money it is very tempting for senior officers to "divert" that money to other projects and not what it was allocated for.
3. If there is not a rigorous regime it is far to easy for someone to make false allegations about the officers that are using the money.
4. The Sheriff or Chief needs to be able to see  exactly how much was paid,  who was paid and what the agency got for that money. This requires comprehensive records of every payment the dates the times and who paid it, who authorised the payment and why.  This goes a long way to ensuring objectivity when deciding how much to pay a confidential informant.
5. If there is not a clear audit of payments it can raise serious doubt about the veracity of any information obtained by the confidential informant. This can more problems down the line when it comes to disclosure, particularly if the informant is for some reason going to be used as a witness. 
6. These funds come from taxpayers. Taxpayers are entitled to have a proper accounting of how their taxes are spent. This does not mean that these records should be made public. On the contrary to do so would jeopardise the life of informants. What is required is that all the records are kept in one place where a suitably qualified person can audit them and provide reassurance to the public. 

If procedures are not in place for the strict control of confidential informant finance it is a clear indication to any professional involved in this type of work that the agency has failed to manage the risks associate with managing confidential informants and as such they are negligent. In short the agency should not be managing informants. The risks are too great. The idea that an officer can access money in this way is reminiscent  of the times when a drugs detective got a handful of cash for  "walking around money". Those times should be history. 

There is software to manage confidential informants and if any agency wants advice and guidance on how to put adequate systems in place please feel free to contact us. We will help where we can.

Confidential informants, undercover activity, negligence and lawsuits

Oh dear… the lawyers are coming…

For a senior police officer it is the stuff of nightmares. There has been an incident of some sort and now the lawyers want to paw through all your records pertaining some sort of undercover activity which your agency has been involved in. The incident may have involved the deployment of an undercover officer, or it may have been a surveillance operation or have involved the use of a human source (confidential informant). While in many cases the lawyer may be seeking only to get an acquittal for their client, unfortunately, and all too often nowadays, it is more likely to be that the lawyer is pressing a lawsuit against the law enforcement agency because some form of harm has come to their client. 

For the Chief of the agency it is not always obvious what the lawyer will look for and how the agency will be left vulnerable. Fortunately, no matter where you are in the world, the things that will cause the agency problems are very similar. At HSM Training we are regularly asked to carry out audits to find out what could go wrong or what has gone wrong.  We are telling you now, so that you can fix them BEFORE something bad happens (and before a lawyer raises them in court).

There are three things that will always lead to problems if they are not well established within any agency. A failure to have these in place will lead to negative events and are most likely to result in the agency being the wrong end of a successful lawsuit. They fall under three headings:

1.       Legislation, Policy and Procedures

2.       Training

3.       Records

It goes without saying that if you are not adhering to legislation as a law enforcement agency you are going to be in trouble. However, law enforcement agencies look at legislation in a very narrow way, for example they do not even consider that workplace safety legislation will apply to their covert operation and therefore they breach that legislation. Agencies fail to have policies relevant to the work they carry out. Policy is a public statement of what the agency intends to do and an explanation in general terms as to how they will do it. This informs the general public that the agency is undertaking the named activities and gives them an idea of the controls that will be in place. If you don’t have a public policy, then it looks like you are hiding something. Where there is national policy that should be adhered to. Procedures are different from policy. Because of the secret nature of covert activities these documents should not be made available to the public. They should be exempt under freedom of information as they expose law enforcement methods. Procedures are a standardised series of actions taken to achieve a task so that everyone who undertakes the task does in an agreed and consistent way to achieve a safe, effective outcome. Procedures have a lot of detail. They say exactly who will do the work and they detail the processes for how that work will be carried out. Generally speaking, where agencies fall down is lack of comprehensive, well written procedures that are reviewed on an annual basis and where compliance with them is intrusively and rigorously enforced by managers.

Whatever role an officer is undertaking they need to be selected and properly trained for that role and certified as being competent for that role. Details of how the officer was selected, and the training they have received, need to be recorded including both the content and duration of the training and the results of any form of assessment. Officers need to receive regular updates in their training and should be signed off one an annual basis as being competent for the task in question.  All officers regardless of rank, involved in the relevant task, must be trained.    The level of training required will come down to the risks involved with the nature of task being carried out. If someone might die, you are going to need a lot of training. If an officer is not trained properly, it is negligence to have them doing the task. There is no excuse such as not having the money to train them.

There need to be comprehensive records of all aspects of the activity being undertaken and these should be kept in one centralised location. Ideally they should be on a computerised secure system. [For covert activities if the computer system is not of sufficiently high security, stick with paper. Do NOT use your standard records management system that you use for patrol.] If the agency has not identified all the records that should be kept and if they are not all completed properly it is going a long way to suggesting either wrongdoing or negligence.

Having examined any agencies policy and procedures, their training and their record keeping it takes an expert minutes to identify if the agency could have done things more effectively. The expert then presents their opinion to the court. It is then up to the court to decide whether that amounted to negligence and whether or not that negligence resulted in harm to a person.

It is perhaps worth noting that in some jurisdictions the mere existence of the risk of harm to a person constitutes a criminal offence under health and workplace safety legislation! If you want advice, ask us or wait for the lawyers to ask.

Ten things that should be taught on an entry level HUMAN SOURCE MANAGEMENT course

Managing human sources (confidential informants) is often perceived as a task that any officer can do and that every detective should do. However, despite significant evidence of the importance of training for officers involved in this role many agencies provide only the minimum, if any training, and then wonder why it goes horribly wrong. Even in the state of Florida in the USA where training for officers managing human sources (confidential informants) is a legislative requirement (following the death of Rachel Hoffman) officers there, often receive only the most nominal training.  Managers, often untrained themselves, do not understand the difficulties in managing a human source (confidential informant) or cite the excuse of not being able to afford the cost of training as the reasons they don’t provide it for their staff.  Where an officer has not been properly trained, allowing that officer to manage a human source (confidential informant) is negligence on the part of the law enforcement agency. Training should be delivered by a qualified person, delivered against a minimum set of standards and delivered to all staff involved, regardless of rank. Those supervising the management will require additional training.  An introductory level human source course for an officer beginning to manage human sources will take an absolute minimum of one week to deliver. If staff are getting any less than a week no expert would considered them to be properly trained. [Note: this week of training is dedicated exclusively to managing human sources (confidential informants) as opposed to a one hour lecture included on a narcotics course!]

As a guide we have included ‘Ten things’ that should be taught on an introductory level, human source (confidential informant) management course. These are:

1.    Civil liberties and human rights. Using human sources will always engage civil liberty and human rights; officers need to be aware what these issues are and how to justify their actions.

2.  Ethics and morals. Managing human sources is fraught with ethical and moral dilemmas. Only by training officers in ethics can these matters be effectively addressed.

3.   Corruption. Unfortunately, all too often officers involved in managing human sources become mired in corruption. Understanding the psychological process involved helps reduce the chances of the officer falling victim to this.

4.  Risk management. There are significant risks in managing any human source. Officers need to be trained how to identify, evaluate record and manage the relevant risks.

5.   Legislation and the agency’s policies and procedures for managing human spources. Officers need to know the relevant legislation and need the agency’s procedures explained to them.

6.    Record keeping. Officers need to know what records to complete and the time frames for completion of those records.

7.      Field-craft. Keeping both the officers and the human source alive involves equipping all with the skills necessary to make contact and meet safely.

8.     Debriefing. Many officers have only the most rudimentary of skills when it comes to eliciting the maximum amount of information from a human source. Training officers in ‘relevant’ interviewing skills maximises the amount of information gained. Some common interview techniques currently in use are totally counter productive for this arena.

9.       Writing information submissions. Officers also need to be taught the difference between information and intelligence. Many officers do not know this and as a result do not know how to write comprehensive and accurate accounts of the information they receive during a meeting. This results in inaccurate information being submitted or in the worst case, acted upon without any centralised control.

10.  Psychology. Teaching officers even the most fundamental aspects of the psychology involved in managing human sources will increase the source's productivity and increase the control over that source, thus helping keep everyone safe.

While this article leans towards a USA perspective the content of any course anywhere is the same.

The term "HUMAN SOURCE"

If we want to discuss anything, it is always good that there is clarity regarding the words we will use. As this blog will regularly discuss ‘human sources’ let us start by defining a human source.

A human source is: “a person who has been deliberately recruited and is managed to collect information to satisfy an intelligence requirement.”

This definition of a Human Source was developed during research by Reid and Buckley and carried out as part of a UK Home Office funded research police award beginning in 2000.

In essence what we are going to talk about is ‘informants’ and whether you call them covert human intelligence sources (UK term) or confidential informants (USA terminology) or anything else, depending on what your role is and where in the globe you are, the term we will use is HUMAN SOURCE.

There were a number of reasons why the term of a human source and the associate concept were developed during that period of international research. These include:

1.       Human source is a neutral term which does not carry with it much of the negativity that is normally associated with other terms such as informant, snitch, snout, rat, etc.  All too often people involved in providing information that prevents crime and saves lives are vilified and pilloried. While this may be understandable if someone is involved in crime, as a general rule, speaking in derogatory terms, about a human source is uninformed and prejudiced. It is also unprofessional when derogatory comments about human sources are made by anyone involved in criminal justice, be they prosecutors or law enforcement officials.

2.       Human sources are a ‘source of information’. Law enforcement needs information to combat crime and protect the community from terrorism.

3.     Human sources are human. If one knows and understands how human beings function, then one can better manage a human source. Unfortunately, some people seem to think that human sources are in some way less than human, or different from any other human on the planet.

4.       Managing a human source, as one would manage any other human relationship, ensures that all involved are treated with dignity and respect and in an ethical way.     

We will explore what we mean by the words ‘intelligence requirement’ in a later blog but for now we will take it as a given that human sources would only be used where the Police Chief has identified that the information they are providing, helps address their identified policing priorities. But if you can’t wait you may want to look at our publications. 

Seven things every Police Chief needs to know about Intelligence Led Policing

Here are a few basics that any Police Chief needs to know when making decisions about implementing Intelligence Led Policing.

1.       Information and intelligence are two different things. If your intelligence staff don’t know the difference, you may want find staff who do.

2.       Intelligence led policing is not about making pretty pictures with your crime data. Unless you are using information gathered from both overt and covert collection your picture will always be a distorted one.

3.       An analyst is a specialised role. They should be able to work with crime data and intelligence and should have access to both. Recognise and reward their expertise. Too many sworn officers fail to understand or recognise their worth.

4.       Make sure you have fully accountable processes for all your collection activities. You must have authorisation processes to sanction collection and that address privacy,  human rights and civil liberties.

5.       Train your staff. How will they know about intelligence, if they have not been taught? And that includes your managers!

6.       Be wary about what people tell you computers can do. There is some good software out there, but software is only a tool, not the answer. Rarely will criminals post their intentions on the internet.  Information collected on the internet is only a help.

7.       Intelligence led policing works – if you understand it and do it right. If you need help just ask.

If you want to know more about Intelligence Management in law enforcement check out our publications.

Managing human sources

Are you interested in the latest and best training for Human Source Management please get in touch.