The University of Massachusetts Amherst is officially ending its confidential informant program, which enlisted students to help the campus police in order to avoid drug charges. Amherst chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy suspended the program in September when the Boston Globe revealed one of the student informants had died of a heroin overdose in 2013. A university-appointed panel has since concluded that the police force has not used any informants since the student, “Logan,” passed away, and recommended the program be permanently eliminated.
Though most college students are legal adults who can make their own decisions about whether to participate in a program like this, the prospect of prosecution and jail time would exert heavy pressure on a student to accept an offer to be in the program. Even a non-violent offense like drug possession could severely damage a student’s future career prospects. The university-appointed panel’s report also found there was no communication between the UMass Police Department and other university offices, such as the Dean of Students and Residence Life, indicating the student probably received little to no counsel about whether being an informant was ultimately in his best interest.
To be an informant for the police is not necessarily an innocuous task. If a student continues to socialize with other students who use drugs, it may be more difficult for him to avoid further drug use. Especially for those who struggle with addiction, cutting ties with peers who still use drugs is often a necessary step to stay clean, and this severance would not be possible for an effective informant to do.
Addiction treatment programs may be a more appropriate option for students to avoid charges, as this prioritizes the welfare of the individual student rather than the goals of the police department. The UMPD said they asked Logan if he needed help with his drug addiction, but the university-appointed panel’s report also concluded the informant program had no formalized “opportunity for the student to be assessed regarding his or her own substance use and possible abuse, or to be offered treatment.”
Besides being potentially risky for the students who were directly involved in the program, the general population of students at the university felt the police were untrustworthy because of this particular tactic. The primary job of a university police force should be to protect the students, and if the students do not feel comfortable going to the police for help, they cannot effectively do their jobs. The police should definitely aim to stop the circulation of dangerous drugs among the students in order to preserve student well-being, but a student informant program which depends on deception and secrecy is not the way to go about this mission.
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