Neither Confirm nor Deny: Secrecy and Disclosure in Undercover Policing. Issue 3 (2nd September 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hadjimatheou, Katerina
• Is Part Of: Criminal justice ethics. Volume 36:Issue 3(2017)
• Page Start: 279
• Page End: 296
• Publication Date: 2017-09-02
• Subjects: undercover -- secrecy -- disclosure -- misconduct -- NCND; Criminal justice, Administration of -- Periodicals; Criminal justice, Administration of -- United States -- Periodicals; Social justice -- Periodicals; Social ethics -- Periodicals; 174.9364
• DOI: 10.1080/0731129X.2018.1424756
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0731-129X

Abstract

Abstract : Recent scandals in U.K. undercover policing have prompted a public re-examination of the basis for continued secrecy with respect to cases in which serious historical misconduct is suspected. As part of its approach to balancing the competing demands of secrecy and accountability, the current legal process requires the police to provide case-by-case risk assessments of the harm to policing threatened by disclosure. This article considers the role of risk assessments in this process. It critically examines two arguments put forward by police in support of their claim that such assessments will nearly always support a refusal to disclose and thus a "neither confirm nor deny" response to requests for information about undercover policing. It argues that these arguments apply in fewer cases and/or less conclusively than police routinely suppose, and that their obligation to provide detailed case-by-case risk assessments therefore cannot be thereby evaded.