Law of Undercover Policing

Undercover policing is an investigative technique that is largely unregulated by constitutional criminal procedure in the United States, though the European Court of Human Rights has proven more willing to regulate the impact of undercover tactics on fundamental rights. American criminal law regulates undercover policing primarily through the entrapment defense, of which there are different variants. Current tests rest on empirical assumptions about the ways in which police investigations influence their target environment. Current versions of the entrapment defense do not take account of the varieties of undercover investigations and the different types of influences undercover agents may exert on their targets.