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Book Review: Covert Human Intelligence Sources: The ''Unlovely'' Face of Police Work
Robert J. Durn International Criminal Justice Review 2011 21: 317 DOI: 10.1177/1057567711410301 The online version of this article can be found at: http://icj.sagepub.com/content/21/3/317.citation

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Book Reviews

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R. Billingsley (Ed.) Covert Human Intelligence Sources: The Unlovely Face of Police Work Sherfield Gables: Waterside Press, 2009. xxvi, 189 pp. $36.70. ISBN 978-1-904-38044-3 Reviewed by: Robert J. Duran, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM DOI: 10.1177/1057567711410301

The social world of criminal informers and police handlers are often veiled in secrecy. At their best, department policies and rules, legislative mandates, and administrative guidelines are often vague leaving those working in the handling of informers with a desire for greater clarity. Roger Billingsleys edited book titled Covert Human Intelligence Sources: The Unlovely Face of Police Work seeks to fill this gap in the literature and primarily serve as a form of guidance for criminal justice practitioners and academics in the United Kingdom. The editor and eight additional contributors provide a range of topics related to Covert Human Intelligence Source (CHIS) based upon three sections of the book including legal issues, practitioner issues, and the future which covers topic such as debriefing, risk management, and the informerhandler relationship. Billingsleys editorial framework is based on 32 years of English police service that guided his selection of putting together a team of academic, law enforcement, and legal experts specializing on informers. His previous book, a coedited volume titled Informers: Policing, Policy, and Practice (2001) is organized in a similar manner but with different topics and contributors. The themes and discussion provided in CHIS pursues an audience already involved in the discussion of informers. The 10 chapters are primarily technical in nature and cover various case laws and administrative challenges that require greater foresight in being able to reduce risks involved when using informers. Informers are defined as individuals with one or both feet in the underworld thus distinguishing these individuals from those who simply provide information to the police. The editor and contributors describe how informers have a long history, going as far back to Judas Iscariot, and seen as a rulers treasure by the military theorist Sun Tzu. In the foreword, Jon Murphy argues that law enforcement in the United Kingdom is intelligence-led. Thus, the proper management of information is of high importance in order to prevent crime and solve previous illegal activities. The contributors and editor emphasize that since the passage of several forms of legislation including the Human Rights Act 1998 and Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the use of informers has less corruption and problems than prior to the 21st century. Although the book offers an intensified focus on managing informers, at least two limitations reduce its audience and larger contribution. First in order to help connect audiences in Europe and the United States on the use of informers, the following chapters (Chapter 7: The European Perspective and Chapter 10: The Informer Relationship) being placed first rather than toward the end can help orient readers toward the context and broader theoretical importance. My second wish for this book would be to include a much needed fourth theme: experiences of individuals who serve as informers and a broader coverage of informer experiences gone wrong. There is an important but unexplored text within the book that if informers and covert policing are not managed correctly there can be serious consequences to the law enforcement agency and its credibility in society. Several chapters include the theme of corruption as posing a central challenge to the use of informers but the discussion is largely undeveloped and minimized as a fragment of the past. Building upon the challenges to the use of informers in the form of previous corruption and miscarriages of justice can help to demonstrate how the current chapters provided in the book are an accomplishment. Moreover, such a discussion could move the conversation toward a more critically empowered and empirically supported argument that the use informers are better now than in the past. Billingsley provides an important theoretical and ethical analysis in Chapter 10 which focuses on the informer relationship with the handler. Billingsley evaluates whether such a relationship

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International Criminal Justice Review 21(3)

between informer and police officer are entirely unique or possibly shared in other fields. In my own research as an ethnographer, the information obtained by individuals with one or both feet in the underworld is essential. Sometimes these interviews have been law enforcement and other times those involved in gangs, but the overall theme with both is that without such information my research lacks insight. Negotiated relationships offer something to the person desiring information and the person supplying. Anticolonial and feminist studies question whether the power differential can ever be altered, especially with law enforcement where the consequences include possible limits to freedom and liberty. Linking CHISs to broader forms of intelligence gathering and perspectives other than practitioners could make this book more useful to a broader audience. For now, the book is primarily designed for practitioners in the United Kingdom in roles such as law enforcement, law, and courts.

E. Erez, M., Kilchling, & J. Wemmers (Eds.) Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Victim Participation in Justice: International Perspectives Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2011. ISBN 978-1-59460-946-6 Reviewed by: Paul-Jesus Fericelli, University of Texas, Arlington, TX DOI: 10.1177/1057567711411142

In their new book, Edna Erez, Michael Kilchling, and Jo-Anne Wemmers provide their perspectives about therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ). The TJ studies the effects of law and the legal system on the behavior, emotions, and mental health of people. The TJ examines how legal procedures and mental health interact. The book discusses TJ as a framework to analyze victim participation in legal procedures. The authors want to strengthen the relevance of victims in the TJ research agenda. The majorities of the chapters are the results of professional presentations and informative workshops previously made by the contributors at Onati, Spain. The introduction gives a brief review of all 12 chapters, which are divided into the following sections: (a) victim participation, (b) victims and the law, (c) restorative and transitional justice, and (d) controversies and limits. It identifies the concerns and the questions that are addressed throughout the book. A total of 18 contributors provide the reader an international perspective of ways in which victims are incorporated into TJ. Contributors belong to the following academic disciplines: sociology, criminology, law, psychology, victimology, and social sciences (12 have PhDs, 4 have JDs, and 2 are PhD students). Presenters use paradigms from the United States, Germany, Austria, Canada, and South Africa to develop their arguments about TJ. In Section 1, the contributors address the topic of victim participation. They begin by discussing and suggesting how TJ promotes healing and human potential in victims of crime. This section gives the reader a perspective of victim participation in reforms and welfare in the United States. Contributors apply phenomenological techniques with criminal justice professionals such as judges, public prosecutors, accessory prosecutors, victim support workers, and victims to develop their discussion. This chapter discusses the legislation concerning prosecution of accessories in Germany. Next, the perceptions of Canadian judges, public prosecutors, and victim support workers provide answers to the following questions: when is victim participation helpful or therapeutic for victims, and when is it harmful or antitherapeutic? Finally, themes from the answers of the participants are identified. In Section 2, contributors discuss the role that criminal justice professionals could have with victims of crime. This section proposes a new way that law school clinics can promote counseling experiences to their law practitioners, resulting in legal advice to victims through the judicial

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