The Right to Silence and Undercover Police Operations

Abstract

While conducting doctoral research on international undercover operations, the author attended undercover training courses in the United States (US) and in Canada. He also conducted interviews with undercover operatives and those that supervise undercover operations with several agencies in the US, Canada, United Kingdom (UK) and the Netherlands. During the course of this research the author was privy to sophisticated and contemporary undercover training and recruitment methodologies. While the author is available to provide advice to law enforcement agencies on undercover management and training, the author is cognisant of the detrimental effect of disclosing policing methodologies to those external to law enforcement who may hold less than desirable motives. As such, this article is focused upon shedding some light upon the legal ‘grey’ area that exists between the right to silence and police undercover investigations, from information available in the public domain. However, when researching material for this article, the author was both surprised and alarmed at the quantity and accuracy of publicly available information on undercover policing methodologies.¹