According to an article in De Pers, Dutch police intelligence services attempt to recruit minors to serve as informers. In at least some cases, this was even done without their parents knowing. A lawyer quoted in the article spoke of “stasi-like methods”, which sounds about right to me.
In the Netherlands only the socalled CIE or Criminal Intelligence Unit is allowed to use informers, with information gathered through their use not legal to use in criminal prosecutions, though some lawyers do complain that such information does end up in public prosecutor files and is hard to check up on. Rules about the use of minors are non-existent, so the situation seems rife for abuse. Certainly any such approach of a minor should be done with the permission of their parents. Sneaking around behind their backs is just wrong.
Menno
November 17, 2011 at 3:32 amOn the one hand, this might endanger children, which is of course not what we want. On the other hand, criminal gangs these days also have minors as members, and I’ve just read another story of some racially-motivated stabbing done by minors. Police have to get their information somewhere.
Martin Wisse
November 17, 2011 at 4:58 pmYeah, it’s not so much the use of minors as the way the police allegedly go about it that is wrong. You can’t ask a fifteen year old to make these sort of decisions; their parents should be involved.