Undercover is a police technique of executing an operation without alerting the criminals. The action makes sure the identity of the officer in duty is not detected by the entity being spied. The officer is given a different status that differs from the original identification. The purpose of the new license is to hide the truth from the suspect (Kowalczyk & Sharps, 2017). Therefore, the officer is forced to live a double life. The undercover officer is supposed to gain the trust of the organization of the individual. After that, he or she is expected to fetch all confidential information that can make a shred of strong evidence.
In this case, the mission is to investigate a group of drug dealers. In the process, my partner is probably using some cocaine with his friend. According to the law, it is illegal for an undercover police officer to consume drugs. However, the situation is beneficial in my view. Every covert mission is subject to blowing up due to several complications. At some point, the criminals may learn the identity of the officers on duty, and it may lead to their death. Identity forging is detected through some weird behaviors. Mostly, if the officer acts weird or does not perform as expected, in this case, his expression of consuming cocaine will help the mission to remain uncovered.
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To prevent the situation from getting worse, I will consider taking actions that defend him from the law and the suspects. The activities include reporting the matter to the head office. However, the report will state that the officer was forced by circumstances to consume cocaine (Monaghan & Walby, 2018). Secondly, I will encourage my officer to keep his consumption a secret from the head office. On the hand, he should consume in small quantities when circumstances are forcing him.
The two actions are essential to the mission and the well-being of the officer. At first, I need to rephrase the case and blame the criminals. In this case, the law will not punish the officer. According to the rules of an undercover operation, the officer-in-charge should not be involved in a sexual act or drug consumption with the suspects (Drouin, Boyd, Hancock & James, 2017). However, the law is revised and allows the actions if the investigated personnel forces the officers. The second action will help the officer to remain covered all through the mission. A small contradiction will make the criminals to suspect the officer. Therefore, the effect will encourage the officer to keep consuming the drug for security purposes.
The consumption of cocaine will affect the whole mission in different ways. At first, the unit and the unit members will be subjected to untold dangers. At first, the law will be harsh on me, the group, and all other members (Coomber, Moyle & Mahoney, 2019). According to the rules of an undercover operation, the group should protect the undercover officers. In the case of misunderstanding or misbehaving, I am supposed to report my partner to the head office. Afterward, I should push for a quick change in the mission before things get worse.
Cocaine would influence my partner to handle the mission in different ways. At some point, the drug might make my partner to give his secrets. Automatically, the task will be unsuccessful. On the other hand, the unit and unit member will be charged with human mishandling (Ross, 2017). At some point, the family of the officer may use the unit of drug addiction. Moreover, if the officer is killed during the mission, the court will acquire evidence about cocaine consumption and blame the group. In another scenario, mission failure will cost the group huge amounts.
References
Coomber, R., Moyle, L., & Mahoney, M. K. (2019). Symbolic policing: situating targeted police operations/‘crackdowns’ on street-level drug markets. Policing and society , 29 (1), 1-17.
Drouin, M., Boyd, R. L., Hancock, J. T., & James, A. (2017). Linguistic analysis of chat transcripts from child predator undercover sex stings. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology , 28 (4), 437-457.
Kowalczyk, D., & Sharps, M. J. (2017). Consequences of undercover operations in law enforcement: A review of challenges and best practices. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology , 32 (3), 197-202.
Monaghan, J., & Walby, K. (2018). “Hobocops”: Undercover Policing’s Deceptive Encounters. Criminological Encounters , 1 (1), 7-18.
Ross, J. E. (2017). Undercover Populism. In Contemporary Organized Crime (pp. 231-251). Springer, Cham.
