On September 29, Chancellor Subbaswamy released a statement saying that the Confidential Informant program at UMass has been suspended, and that the SGA is preparing a statement on what to do about the currently-suspended program. This program has been chastised by UMass President Robert Caret, saying that he “doesn’t like the feel of it,” and also by many students in the wake of its exposition after a UMass junior’s death from a heroin overdose in October 2013. There just remains one question-what is the Confidential Informant program?
Essentially, a confidential informant is what it sounds like. A person that has been arrested can exchange their sentence with the agreement that they will help the police catch other criminals in a form of a plea bargain, becoming an accessory to the police and informing them of illegal activity. Also called a “snitch,” “rat,” or “stool pigeon,” this informant can often blend into criminal environments better than most undercover police officers, but in turning in other criminals can be found out as an informant and be ostracized, so a rapid turnover is necessary.
UMass Amherst has had a confidential informant program since 2009, despite neither of the other residential UMass campuses having this program. Among universities in Massachusetts, UMass Amherst seems to be an outlier in having confidential informants, as Northeastern, Tufts, Boston University, and Boston College do not use confidential informants in conducting drug investigations.
The CI program came to light after a story by Kayla Marchetti and Eric Bosco on a UMass junior who was a CI and died from a heroin overdose in his Hadley apartment in October 2013 got front-page coverage in the Boston Globe. He had been found dealing molly and LSD out of his Washington dorm room in late 2012, his drugs and money were seized, and he was issued an ultimatum by the police-that he could be arrested on drug trafficking charges and have his parents be notified, or become a CI and rat out his friends and stay in school. He chose the latter option, but received no drug counseling. This allowed his heroin habit to develop and ultimately kill him.
For now, however, the plan is suspended while it undergoes investigation by the SGA and the UMPD. The SGA’s initial statement was that there was “no possible significant change that would make the confidential informant program in use by the UMPD safe for all students and therefore should be permanently discontinued,” but they are looking into it further and will craft a revised statement in their meeting on October 14 having done more research. Caret also says that he doesn’t like students being “leveraged” to become drug informants, but that he will also keep an open mind to the revisions that Subbaswamy and the SGA will offer. Subbaswamy and an 11-member committee met to review the CI program’s policies, and after looking at Caret’s and the SGA’s statements, the case evidence, and their own research will offer a final verdict at the end of the semester.