The DEA now requires agents to include risk assessments on informants with violent backgrounds. Defense attorneys criticize the use of informants, but they don't have an alternative to keep the effectiveness of law enforcement at its current level or improve it. It doesn't mean you won't put them in jail. But the reality is if you need firsthand information to break up criminal organizations, you have to get information from the inside, and I don't know any other way to do that. Critics, however, have proposed requiring that informant testimony be corroborated with other evidence and that they be monitored for trustworthiness, including periodic lie-detector tests.
Informant use is such an integral part of the justice system, yet so ripe for abuse.
In my experience, drugs represent far less harm to our children than does pedophilia. Moreover, the harm that drugs do present to children is really a factor of prohibition. I couldn't agree with you more. A copy of this article should be sent to every household in America. Let everyone see what their drug war tax dollars are paying for, and maybe then they'll think twice before voting in another insane drug warrior.