The use by legitimate services of informants, that is, people from the criminal circle who are ready to cooperate with the investigation seems to be a reasonable but ethically contradictory act. The examples of James Whitey Bulger and Andrew Chambers considered in this paper demonstrate different aspects of the interaction of the underworld with justice. Ethical norms in such cases depend on the situation and context, in particular, resting on the need for real prevention of a criminal threat.
Andrew Chambers’ story is unique in that it includes a record number of years undercover. Chambers led a double life for 16 years, working as a police informant for the narcotics department. Chambers also set the record in the number of thwarted criminal deals in Los Angeles and beyond, preventing hundreds of tons of hard drugs from being sold and hitting the streets. The inconsistency of Chambers’s figure lies in the fact that the agent pretended to be a person without a criminal past to get the job (Bovard, 2021). Chambers’ actions seem already less morally pure and ethically motivated, given that he was arrested several times before going undercover.
Significantly, Chambers’ activities as an agent were essentially commercial – the DEA claims he received a staggering $4 million in total for his work. Chambers’ technique was the following model – he made deals with the city’s big hustlers and subsequently prepared to disrupt them and arrest those involved. This practice actually implies that Chambers was selling drugs with which the buyers were subsequently caught. On the one hand, this practice is extremely controversial since police officers are, in essence, catalysts for the crime committed. However, on the other hand, without this work, the long war on drugs in the United States would have been completely lost by the authorities. The arrests made with the direct participation of Chambers made it possible to uncover many hidden chains of criminal circles in the States, for which some consider Chambers a real hero.
An even more difficult ethical dilemma is the case of James Whitey Bulger, a mafia boss in Boston, Massachusetts. Bulger lived a long and high-profile life as a criminal, acquiring his first mug shot back in the 1950s. However, it is clearly documented that, being in the status of a legendary criminal, Bulger actively cooperated with the FBI for the last 15 years of his life (McPhee, 2021). Bulger strongly denied his connection with the special services, however, multi-volume documentation proves his clear cooperation. Bulger reported to the authorities on murders, racketeering raids, and deals.
However, it is important that in this way, he not only helped the FBI fulfill the quota for catching criminals but also remained at large without changing his course of action, remaining a bandit. Bulger used the tips given to him by the FBI for his own purposes, getting rid of enemies or simply objectionable ones (Klein, 2019). It should also be noted that he himself received information from the secret services – giving bribes to corrupt agent John Morris. It is obvious that such interaction between the police and the criminal is so actively coordinated that it leaves a mark on the representatives of the law. In fact, the Bulger mafia empire continued to exist with the permission and even encouragement of national security services. These relations between the authorities and criminals seem unacceptable because behind them, the idea of the ultimate goal, the fight against crime, is blurred. Too many aspects of this story can be perceived as the patronage of the criminal lifestyle of the violent ringleader of an organized crime group by the police.
Both precedents can certainly be interpreted as denigrating the activities of the police and special services. The very fact that the police guarantee the safety of the criminal while they continue to engage in illegal activities goes against the basic ideas of ethics. However, both cases are also conveniently viewed from the perspective of finding the lesser of two evils. In the case of Andrew Chambers, the functions of entire drug cartels were suspended, and insider information about their activities could not be obtained except through the agency bordering on the illegal activities of Chambers. In the case of Whitey, the situation is even more controversial since a really big criminal and a brutal killer is discussed. However, it can be assumed that if he were arrested immediately, any chain leading to the exposure of the entire mafia ring would be stopped.
Thus, one can conclude that each of the participants in these controversial incidents was guided by the principle of benefit. It was the desire for profit that pushed Chambers to work undercover and Bulger to extradite his accomplices. The benefit of the secret services, if one excludes cases of outright corruption, was to learn about the representatives of the criminal world in order to cut off the existence of criminal organizations more sharply. The willingness to make such compromises with criminals can be questionable but seems justified when it comes to potentially saving hundreds of lives.
References
Bovard, J. (2021). Biden plans expansion of feds’ army of snitches in ‘Dollars for collars’ program.The American Conservative. Web.
Klein, C. (2019). How Whitey Bulger manipulated the FBI into locking up his enemies.History. Web.
McPhee, M. (2021). Who killed Whitey Bulger? No one is in a rush to find out.Los Angeles Magazine. Web.