Managing Narcotics Informants

Course Description:

This course is designed for new and experienced drug enforcement officers/agents, other law enforcement officers, and military, with the need to cultivate, manage, control and utilize informants for their enforcement and investigative needs. This course will instruct officers/agents on best practices, lessons learned in the field and innovative methodologies used to manage narcotics-related and other informants effectively, safely, and legally. It will review the most frequently encountered informant related issues experienced by contemporary drug officers/agents. It will offer a comprehensive and systematic review of model policies and procedures governing the utilization of informants. Student officers/agents will be immersed in several challenging practical exercises which build upon themselves to help students master effective skills necessary when managing informants, especially in difficult situations.

Topics covered in this course include:

• The characteristics of productive informants.
• Characteristics of undesirable informants and sources.
• Criteria for informant status.
• Informant motivations.
• Use of special category informants.
• Informant recruitment and cultivation.
• Informant identification and documentation.
• Registering informant.
• Control mechanisms.
• Effective deployment of informants.
• This course will instruct officers how to avoid pitfalls and problems with informants and how to develop a productive officer/agent-informant relationship.

Prerequisites: None

Course Length: 3 days/ 24 hours

Who May Attend: Law Enforcement