Rats. Snitches. Finks. Assets. C.Is. Call them whatever you like, informants are nothing more than criminals who receive money and/or reduced jail-time in exchange for information. While the reliance of police forces and judicial systems upon compensated informants is a tradition that dates back to the Roman empire, they now thrive in unprecedented number and influence, having become integral to almost every case brought to trial in American courtrooms.

Dennis G. Fitzgerald situates this growing role of informants in the rise of outsourcing, the paranoia brought about by the War on Terror, and the decline of traditional policing methods. Illuminating the machinations of the American justice system from an unprecedented angle, Dealing with the Devil reveals how our domestic and international intelligence-gathering capabilities have been crippled and our law enforcement’s priorities twisted by an over-reliance on civilian information.

In the tradition of Jeremy Scahill’s Blackwater and Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, Dealing with the Devil rips the lid off a twenty-first-century American social phenomenon and sends the rats scurrying.

Dennis G. Fitzgerald is an attorney, retired U.S. DEA special agent, and former City of Miami police sergeant. He assisted several post-Soviet countries draft laws governing the use of informants, helped create Lithuania’s anti-corruption and witness security programs, and was on faculty at the FBI’s International Training Academy in Budapest. Author of the Informant Law Deskbook and Informants and Undercover Investigations, he lives in Washington state.

When it comes to flipping a suspect, timing is critical. At the moment of arrest, the bad guy is unnerved, confused, frightened, angry, or experiencing a combination of these emotions. His fight, flight, or freeze adrenaline rush has drained him. Whichever option he picked, the result was the same. He has stared down the barrel of a Glock pistol, was probably thrown to the ground, handcuffed, searched and placed in the back of a police car. If he’s been through the system before he knows exactly what awaits him. He’ll be transported to the nearest jail and to be fingerprinted, photographed, strip searched, have his body cavities digitally probed and be sprayed down for lice. He’ll be placed into the bullpen with other inmates where one open toilet serves all. His physical stature and demeanor will determine whether or not he’s raped. If he’s new to the system, and the cops are interested in turning him, they will graphically describe what awaits new meat at the local lockup.

Of greatest importance to the arresting officer, however, is that the individual is not yet represented by counsel. This is the period when most bad guys are turned. A request for a lawyer by the arrestee will usually stop the process dead in its tracks . . .

Cutting a deal is a straightforward pitch: become an informant, make a few cases and it will be as if the crime you committed never happened: no jail, no bail bondsman, no defense attorney, no trial, and no record. Agree and you are unarrested. The handcuffs come off and you walk away from the jaws of our meat grinder criminal justice system.