| A man in Georgia says he risked his life for years and was abandoned. But there are very few rules protecting those who provide law enforcement with information.  Illustration by Avinash Weerasekera One of the more widely used but least understood tools available to law-enforcement officials and prosecutors is the jailhouse informant—a person who often takes great risks to provide evidence of criminal activity. In the popular perception, the informant coöperates in exchange for early parole, a better living situation, or some other special consideration. But, as Charles Bethea reveals in a startling new report, the use of informants is kept purposely opaque by authorities, and many prisoners never see any benefit at all. Bethea writes about a man he calls Cyrus, who played a vital role in major D.E.A. drug cases and whose evidence “contributed to more than a hundred arrests and prosecutions of Department of Corrections employees and current inmates.” And yet, when he came up for parole, he found himself abandoned. “We have a Bill of Rights that constrains what the state can do,” one expert explains about this shadowy system. “We have statutory codes that constrain what people can be convicted and punished for, and codes that say how much punishment is appropriate. And then we suspend nearly all those rules when it comes to informants.” Support The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism. Subscribe today » | 
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