The Pros And Cons Of An Undercover Work
Being undercover is a job for individuals in the police force, who think they can live under the guise of lies in order to obtain justice and get the criminals. Despite the most important pro for undercover work, being that in the end you can get the criminal who was hard to get and very crafty in hiding their crimes from formal investigative techniques, the ends justify the means, even if the means has to deal with unethical situations, where a normal ethical officer could never partake in? For instance, during undercover work, an undercover officer may have to divert money to a particular individual or group in order to make a fake purchase, such as drugs or weapons, and then allow them to take the money into the larger operation. Effectively
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that undercover officer is indirectly helping this individual or group to purchase more stock, or methods to keep competition away, or a means to divulge into other illegal activities. While as a non-undercover officer generally may wait till they find a legal way to prove that the suspect is indulging in criminal activities, but ethically the officer is not helping the criminal prosper. A good aspect, ethically, to undercover work, would be that being undercover gives you perks and resources that regular officers may not have, which allows you to take a bad situation and make the situation work into your favor, because you have the resources and discretion, allowing you to avert or divert the situation in a manner that, sometimes, is favorable. For instance, according to the San Diego Police Department (1998), the problem they had at University Avenue was that there was a copious amount of crime related to drugs. The San Diego Police determined that main contributing factor to the problem was the street level dealing of drugs and the officers, later on, had created a three part plan: Operation Hot Pipe, Smokey Haze, and Rehab. Operation Hot Pipe, was to break down the people who would venture into the area with the intent to purchase and or use drugs, for the officers would hand out fliers to people who got arrested and placed fliers in areas where the fliers would be highly visible. The fliers were essentially telling people that there shall be no cocaine smoking in University Avenue. While as the reason for handing fliers to people who had gotten arrested, was because that arrestee would often read the flier out loud to others whether they were in jail cells or were somewhere else. In Operation Smokey Haze, for the officers would pose as drug dealers and when people tried to purchase drugs, the officers would then arrest the buyer for solicitation.
The rationale behind the revere-sting operation, was in order to create a distrust for the dealers and create a risk for the buyers. The San Diego Police Department successfully committed undercover work in order to break down the foundation of street level drug dealing and also turned University Avenue into the polar opposite of what the area stood for before. University Avenue was the violent area that also happened to be the area to buy drugs, but the undercover work broken that image down and brought up the area into a booming business area. As far as ethics concerned, the undercover officers did everything in a fair and good ethical manner, there was rarely anything that could be considered as a bad or borderline ethically bad. The ethically positive aspect in this scenario was that the officer did not bring in citizens who had nothing to do with the drug ring, but instead only contained their scope to those the individuals who were already coming to the area to buy …show more content…
drugs and those who were involved directly to the drug dealing. The undercover work did also take a bad situation, a situation where the area is renowned for violence and drugs, into an area where business can prosper, drugs aren’t as much of a problem, and people are safer there. Undercover work brought forth a good change, ethically, to the surrounding area, for before the crackdown, many people were indulging in unethical behavior, crime, and then the direct outcome promoted an ethical change to the community, but also brings forth a good ethical guideline for undercover work and how good, ethically, undercover work can be. Undercover work is especially great for causing disarray amongst organized crime groups, for an individual officer can infiltrate into the ranks of the organization or becoming a promising partner with the organized group and gather evidence to prosecute and convict hardened criminals. Such was the case in the Leland Yee and Raymond Chow case, multiple undercover agents were involved in the operation to indict and gather evidence against not only Yee and Chow, but many people who were operating in the Bay Area. According to, Richman, Mintz, Calefati, and Salonga, (2014), writers from the San Jose Mercury News Chow had introduced an undercover agent, who had infiltrated the ranks of the organization, to the Jacksons and Sullivan, Chow’s partners, and the agent had received information that Yee had international contacts, who specifically was able to smuggle large quantities of firearms into other countries. The agents had met with Keith Jackson and Yee, where the agents discussed a relationship in which the agents, posing as potential buyers, made a shopping list of firearms and Yee had happily agreed to the beneficial relationship. While as another agent, later on, had solicited another undercover agent to provide financial benefits to Yee’s mayoral campaign, while in return, Yee would offer official acts and a means to make money, through conspiring to traffic firearms. Chow on the other hand was a San Francisco gangster, who had been under federal law enforcement’s radar for decades, according to the San Jose Mercury News (2014), and had been accused of all assortment of crimes from federal racketeering, murder-for-hire, firearm trafficking, and etc. The undercover officers were doing ethical work, for they were exposing the corruptive nature of Yee and were finally able to, again, bring down a renowned gangster, Chow. One of the positive ethical outcome that came from the undercover work was that they got rid of a potential trafficker and distributer of illegal firearms, on a domestic and international level, which is a gigantic success by itself. The undercover officers had also tore down the credibility of Senator Yee, for they exposed the corruptive behaviors Yee had been indulging in and through Yee, they had exposed an entire crime organization. The crackdown had extended onto breaking down Chow’s organization, because Chow is allegedly the current leader of the crime organization based in San Francisco, and thus the undercover officers had successfully infiltrated the organization and ripped the organization apart; a great ethical outcome. While on the other hand, a negative aspect to undercover work, would be there are situations in which the temptation is too great for the officer to handle and the officer may succumb to the benefits that crime has, whether the benefits be monetary or physical.
Undercover work requires that the officer going undercover must be what Delattre describes as the excellent type, an officer who does not succumb to corruptive behaviors and is able to do their duty day in and day out to the best of their ability; ethically. The officer must be deceitful to everyone and anyone he meets, in order to maintain their cover, an officer can’t be truthful to even his fellow officers, for the undercover officer’s job is to maintain cover and investigate what their commanding officers are asking of them. One of the ethical problems officers face while initiating undercover work is entrapment, for officers often have to walk the thin line of entrapment. Undercover people often have to gain dirt on criminals, but at the same time, not give the idea and coerce them to commit a crime. Constantly officers have to deal with that dilemma and sometimes officers do cross the line, in order to catch the criminal in the act and prevent them from committing more crime. For instance, female officers sometimes dress up as prostitutes in order to solicit others to enact in anti-prostitutions laws. Vice versa occurs too, Male officers often pose as the service buyer and illicit prostitutes to offer their
services and then arrest them or detain them, because the act was an illegal gesture. Though those examples are not entrapment, going any further than that would be entrapment and a person of excellent character is required to refrain from such actions. An example of an officer on the thin line, according to the L.A Times (2014), in 2012, Jesse Snodgrass, an autistic child attending Chaparral High School in Temecula, California, was befriended by another student called Dan, a seemingly normal student, but Jesse didn’t know that Dan, in fact was an undercover officer for the Riverside County Sheriffs. After befriending Jesse, Dan often would constantly pressure Jesse to steal prescription drugs from his parent’s medicine cabinets or buy marijuana and give the drugs to Dan. Jesse managed to buy marijuana off a homeless person and gave the marijuana to Dan, which eventually led to Jesse’s arrest a month later. Though the justice system acquitted him of the drug charges and denied the school’s ability to expel him, Dan was not charged with any kind of misconduct and there was no changes to restrict or deny such undercover methods. This kind of undercover work has a negative aspect to the individual officer, for the officer has to encounter an ethical dilemma, where, in this case, Dan had choose to pick on an autistic child and coerce the child to procure drugs for him. Dan had convinced Jesse to buy drugs, due to constant pressure on Jesse, just to arrest Jesse, who otherwise wouldn’t have bought drugs, but the means, in this case, does not justify what Dan had did. On the other hand, the department and others do not feel the same way and has indulged themselves in the same undercover work and dilemmas, such as the issues Dan faced with coercing Jesse. According to the L.A Times (2014), “… the department has staged four undercover sting operations in which officers adult officers … repeatedly pressured students to obtain illegal substances for them. Over the last four years, nearly a hundred students, a number of whom were special needs students, have been arrested.” Undercover work, pertaining to drug stings in high school, give officers a lot of discretion on how to gather incriminating evidence and brings forth an ethical line that an officer may or may not cross, depending on how they are as a person. Despite the Leland Yee case being a major positive ethical aspect to undercover work, according to Mintz, (2014), San Jose Mercury News, there was an undercover agent, amongst many agents working on the case, who had been allegedly mismanaging money while posing as an Atlanta businessman in order to win favor with Yee. Though not clear whether or not the agent did in fact, mismanage finances in their favor is yet to be determined, but the allegation brings up a negative aspect of undercover work. According to Mintz (2014), “… Jackson’s lawyers say the government failed to disclose that one of its lead agents was being investigated by his bosses when they sought approval from federal judges for wiretaps …”, thus bringing forth a negative aspect of undercover work; the individual agent can work under allegations of unethical and unlawful behavior without question. Undercover work brings forth a diverse group of people and within that diversity, there can be that one individual who crosses the ethical and legal line in order to self-benefit, whether the benefit be physical, monetary, or political.
that undercover officer is indirectly helping this individual or group to purchase more stock, or methods to keep competition away, or a means to divulge into other illegal activities. While as a non-undercover officer generally may wait till they find a legal way to prove that the suspect is indulging in criminal activities, but ethically the officer is not helping the criminal prosper. A good aspect, ethically, to undercover work, would be that being undercover gives you perks and resources that regular officers may not have, which allows you to take a bad situation and make the situation work into your favor, because you have the resources and discretion, allowing you to avert or divert the situation in a manner that, sometimes, is favorable. For instance, according to the San Diego Police Department (1998), the problem they had at University Avenue was that there was a copious amount of crime related to drugs. The San Diego Police determined that main contributing factor to the problem was the street level dealing of drugs and the officers, later on, had created a three part plan: Operation Hot Pipe, Smokey Haze, and Rehab. Operation Hot Pipe, was to break down the people who would venture into the area with the intent to purchase and or use drugs, for the officers would hand out fliers to people who got arrested and placed fliers in areas where the fliers would be highly visible. The fliers were essentially telling people that there shall be no cocaine smoking in University Avenue. While as the reason for handing fliers to people who had gotten arrested, was because that arrestee would often read the flier out loud to others whether they were in jail cells or were somewhere else. In Operation Smokey Haze, for the officers would pose as drug dealers and when people tried to purchase drugs, the officers would then arrest the buyer for solicitation.
The rationale behind the revere-sting operation, was in order to create a distrust for the dealers and create a risk for the buyers. The San Diego Police Department successfully committed undercover work in order to break down the foundation of street level drug dealing and also turned University Avenue into the polar opposite of what the area stood for before. University Avenue was the violent area that also happened to be the area to buy drugs, but the undercover work broken that image down and brought up the area into a booming business area. As far as ethics concerned, the undercover officers did everything in a fair and good ethical manner, there was rarely anything that could be considered as a bad or borderline ethically bad. The ethically positive aspect in this scenario was that the officer did not bring in citizens who had nothing to do with the drug ring, but instead only contained their scope to those the individuals who were already coming to the area to buy …show more content…
drugs and those who were involved directly to the drug dealing. The undercover work did also take a bad situation, a situation where the area is renowned for violence and drugs, into an area where business can prosper, drugs aren’t as much of a problem, and people are safer there. Undercover work brought forth a good change, ethically, to the surrounding area, for before the crackdown, many people were indulging in unethical behavior, crime, and then the direct outcome promoted an ethical change to the community, but also brings forth a good ethical guideline for undercover work and how good, ethically, undercover work can be. Undercover work is especially great for causing disarray amongst organized crime groups, for an individual officer can infiltrate into the ranks of the organization or becoming a promising partner with the organized group and gather evidence to prosecute and convict hardened criminals. Such was the case in the Leland Yee and Raymond Chow case, multiple undercover agents were involved in the operation to indict and gather evidence against not only Yee and Chow, but many people who were operating in the Bay Area. According to, Richman, Mintz, Calefati, and Salonga, (2014), writers from the San Jose Mercury News Chow had introduced an undercover agent, who had infiltrated the ranks of the organization, to the Jacksons and Sullivan, Chow’s partners, and the agent had received information that Yee had international contacts, who specifically was able to smuggle large quantities of firearms into other countries. The agents had met with Keith Jackson and Yee, where the agents discussed a relationship in which the agents, posing as potential buyers, made a shopping list of firearms and Yee had happily agreed to the beneficial relationship. While as another agent, later on, had solicited another undercover agent to provide financial benefits to Yee’s mayoral campaign, while in return, Yee would offer official acts and a means to make money, through conspiring to traffic firearms. Chow on the other hand was a San Francisco gangster, who had been under federal law enforcement’s radar for decades, according to the San Jose Mercury News (2014), and had been accused of all assortment of crimes from federal racketeering, murder-for-hire, firearm trafficking, and etc. The undercover officers were doing ethical work, for they were exposing the corruptive nature of Yee and were finally able to, again, bring down a renowned gangster, Chow. One of the positive ethical outcome that came from the undercover work was that they got rid of a potential trafficker and distributer of illegal firearms, on a domestic and international level, which is a gigantic success by itself. The undercover officers had also tore down the credibility of Senator Yee, for they exposed the corruptive behaviors Yee had been indulging in and through Yee, they had exposed an entire crime organization. The crackdown had extended onto breaking down Chow’s organization, because Chow is allegedly the current leader of the crime organization based in San Francisco, and thus the undercover officers had successfully infiltrated the organization and ripped the organization apart; a great ethical outcome. While on the other hand, a negative aspect to undercover work, would be there are situations in which the temptation is too great for the officer to handle and the officer may succumb to the benefits that crime has, whether the benefits be monetary or physical.
Undercover work requires that the officer going undercover must be what Delattre describes as the excellent type, an officer who does not succumb to corruptive behaviors and is able to do their duty day in and day out to the best of their ability; ethically. The officer must be deceitful to everyone and anyone he meets, in order to maintain their cover, an officer can’t be truthful to even his fellow officers, for the undercover officer’s job is to maintain cover and investigate what their commanding officers are asking of them. One of the ethical problems officers face while initiating undercover work is entrapment, for officers often have to walk the thin line of entrapment. Undercover people often have to gain dirt on criminals, but at the same time, not give the idea and coerce them to commit a crime. Constantly officers have to deal with that dilemma and sometimes officers do cross the line, in order to catch the criminal in the act and prevent them from committing more crime. For instance, female officers sometimes dress up as prostitutes in order to solicit others to enact in anti-prostitutions laws. Vice versa occurs too, Male officers often pose as the service buyer and illicit prostitutes to offer their
services and then arrest them or detain them, because the act was an illegal gesture. Though those examples are not entrapment, going any further than that would be entrapment and a person of excellent character is required to refrain from such actions. An example of an officer on the thin line, according to the L.A Times (2014), in 2012, Jesse Snodgrass, an autistic child attending Chaparral High School in Temecula, California, was befriended by another student called Dan, a seemingly normal student, but Jesse didn’t know that Dan, in fact was an undercover officer for the Riverside County Sheriffs. After befriending Jesse, Dan often would constantly pressure Jesse to steal prescription drugs from his parent’s medicine cabinets or buy marijuana and give the drugs to Dan. Jesse managed to buy marijuana off a homeless person and gave the marijuana to Dan, which eventually led to Jesse’s arrest a month later. Though the justice system acquitted him of the drug charges and denied the school’s ability to expel him, Dan was not charged with any kind of misconduct and there was no changes to restrict or deny such undercover methods. This kind of undercover work has a negative aspect to the individual officer, for the officer has to encounter an ethical dilemma, where, in this case, Dan had choose to pick on an autistic child and coerce the child to procure drugs for him. Dan had convinced Jesse to buy drugs, due to constant pressure on Jesse, just to arrest Jesse, who otherwise wouldn’t have bought drugs, but the means, in this case, does not justify what Dan had did. On the other hand, the department and others do not feel the same way and has indulged themselves in the same undercover work and dilemmas, such as the issues Dan faced with coercing Jesse. According to the L.A Times (2014), “… the department has staged four undercover sting operations in which officers adult officers … repeatedly pressured students to obtain illegal substances for them. Over the last four years, nearly a hundred students, a number of whom were special needs students, have been arrested.” Undercover work, pertaining to drug stings in high school, give officers a lot of discretion on how to gather incriminating evidence and brings forth an ethical line that an officer may or may not cross, depending on how they are as a person. Despite the Leland Yee case being a major positive ethical aspect to undercover work, according to Mintz, (2014), San Jose Mercury News, there was an undercover agent, amongst many agents working on the case, who had been allegedly mismanaging money while posing as an Atlanta businessman in order to win favor with Yee. Though not clear whether or not the agent did in fact, mismanage finances in their favor is yet to be determined, but the allegation brings up a negative aspect of undercover work. According to Mintz (2014), “… Jackson’s lawyers say the government failed to disclose that one of its lead agents was being investigated by his bosses when they sought approval from federal judges for wiretaps …”, thus bringing forth a negative aspect of undercover work; the individual agent can work under allegations of unethical and unlawful behavior without question. Undercover work brings forth a diverse group of people and within that diversity, there can be that one individual who crosses the ethical and legal line in order to self-benefit, whether the benefit be physical, monetary, or political.