Undercover in the prison system

[CuriousMind90]

I dunno if this idea has ever been put in practice outside of fiction, but does anyone else think it'd be a good idea to put undercover policemen in the role of prisoners in jails?

It seems some criminals have a habit of talking about their crimes with each other; Some even talk about crimes that investigators didn't know they committed. For example, Jesse Rush, one of the convicted murderers of Trudy Darby, wrote letters to a fellow inmate who thought could be a "jail house laywer." He was only on the dock for one murder--Darby's--but in his letters investigated at least 3 more, though not giving the specifics or the names of his other victims; He also spoke in depth about he and his brother's method of killing and body disposal. This jailhouse friendship and loose lips got him locked away for good, thankfully.

If undercover policemen or perhaps even undercover federal agents--People specifically trained to fit in with the world of violent criminals, who are trained to track down murderers and the like--could be placed covertly in a prison situation for say, several months, they could possibly gleam a wealth of information about unsolved cases.

Put say two to three agents in such a role in every prison, someone somewhere is bound to talk. Make it the agent's job to befriend the convicted rapists, murderers and suspected (but not proven) serial offenders and perhaps they'll let something loose about a crime, a murder maybe, that they committed but were never investigated for.

[TracyLynnS]

It's definitely been done before. I can't recall any cases of the top of my head, but I'm sure some of our other members will know of some instances where cops went undercover in jails and prisons. Seems like at least one case like this involved a cop going undercover in prison to obtain info from a mafia member. Anyone remember that or am I just confusing real life with an episode of CSI or something? lol

I also recall hearing about a couple cases where cops went undercover in criminal motorcycle gangs that had been responsible for murders and other serious crimes. Their jobs were long and tedious, sometimes taking a couple years to earn the trust of the people involved before they could extract any useful information.

Anyway, I guess that maybe some reasons they don't do it more often is because of lack of funds and the danger the undercover cop would face on a daily basis without much support.

If the cop "prisoner" was targeted for an attack, the only people who could come to his aid would be the guards, and I don't know if they would all be given the information about the inmate actually being a law enforcement officer. The more people who know about it, the greater the chance of the secret getting out, which could result in ruining the case as well as jeopardizing the safety of the officers.

Not to paint guards in a bad light, but it's possible that they may not be as determined to quickly intervene in a fight between a bunch of convicts as they would if they knew a working undercover cop was the victim. That could put the undercover guy in even more danger.

Plus, if they did intervene in an attack, then the cop's cover would be blown, the bad guy would probably be way more tight lipped about his crimes in front of other inmates, and it would take a lot of time and money to get another undercover guy back into the prison and start the whole process all over again.

[TracyLynnS]

Here's one. I haven't read the whole thing, but it's a court case where the inmate believes his rights were violated because when he blabbed to the undercover cop posing as an inmate in prison, he wasn't read his miranda rights. Because of that, his position is that his confession can't be used against him.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Illinois_v._Perkins/Opinion_of_the_Court


Looks like the "Perkins" case ended with a ruling where it was determined that an undercover cop, posing as an inmate, does not have to inform the imprisoned suspect of his miranda rights.

http://4lawnotes.com/showthread.php/2226-Illinois-v.-Perkins

[zack007attack]

Here's one. I haven't read the whole thing, but it's a court case where the inmate believes his rights were violated because when he blabbed to the undercover cop posing as an inmate in prison, he wasn't read his miranda rights. Because of that, his position is that his confession can't be used against him.

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Illinois_v._Perkins/Opinion_of_the_Court


Looks like the "Perkins" case ended with a ruling where it was determined that an undercover cop, posing as an inmate, does not have to inform the imprisoned suspect of his miranda rights.

http://4lawnotes.com/showthread.php/2226-Illinois-v.-Perkins

I bet that even if he did get his miranda rights at some time, the confession wouldn't hold up in court anyway because they would need hard evidence to convict. A better idea would be for the undercover officer to get information about the crime that would lead them to the evidence, then get the prisoner in court for the cirme.

[nohwheregirl]

Why put a cop in that much danger when prison snitches are all too willing to tell what they know in order to cut a deal? If a cop was undercover and he got made, he would be killed, absolutely no question about it. Plus, you'd be going after criminals who were already in prison, thus putting them pretty low on the priority list of people to catch. In general, it would be an irresponsible use of our police force.

My criminology professor told us that he knew of a criminologist who wanted to go inside a prison to conduct a study. He arranged with the warden that he would go inside, be processed like any other prisoner, and that the warden would be the only person in the prison to know about it (this was apparently back before human subjects regulations, etc). As soon as the criminologist got in his cell, he was passed a note that said, "We know who you are. You'll be dead by morning." Apparently, he raised enough of a ruckus to get himself out of the situation, but I think the moral of the story is: don't go undercover in prison.

[killgas20]

Watch the movie Brubaker. Although, he wasn't a cop.