‘Psychological war’: Inside California’s expanding use of jailhouse stings

CalMatters reports that California law enforcement is expanding its use of so-called Perkins operations, in which officers or civilians pose as fellow inmates to coax incriminating statements from people who've been arrested but not yet charged. The tactic has helped secure hundreds of murder convictions, but judges, scholars and defense attorneys increasingly call it coercive, warning it risks false confessions and disproportionately targets Black and Latino suspects. A CalMatters analysis across four counties found undercover agents paid as much as three thousand dollars a day, jail cells wired for recording, and false-evidence ploys, with as many as five operatives placed in a single cell. A state appeals court recently overturned one such conviction, and at least ten related cases are now stacked before the California Supreme Court, which has never before stepped in.

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