Undercover jailhouse stings have value. California shouldn’t abandon them

There is renewed scrutiny in California of so-called Perkins operations, the undercover jailhouse stings that let suspects speak freely to someone they believe is a fellow inmate. The scrutiny is fair, but a closer look shows Perkins operations are not the problem.

They remain lawful under U.S. and California Supreme Court precedent, and have helped resolve some of the state’s toughest cases, including gang shootings and cold-case homicides. The real issue is an interviewing culture that still leans on confrontation and deception long after research demonstrates those tactics unreliable. 

A Perkins operation places an undercover officer beside a suspect who believes he is talking to a  fellow inmate. Since the suspect does not know he is speaking with law enforcement, courts have long held these conversations do not trigger Miranda protections, which guard against the pressure of a known interrogation.

The Supreme Court settled this in its 1990 decision, Illinois v. Perkins, after investigators placed undercover officers in a cell with suspect Richard Perkins, who described a killing in detail after an agent asked if he had ever “done anybody.” The court held that Miranda addresses coercion created by a known interrogation room — pressure that is absent when a suspect believes he is speaking to a peer, not police.

California courts have consistently followed that rationale.  

People v. Zapata, decided this year, shows what happens when a Perkins operation crosses into a legacy-style interrogation. The operation began within the bounds of Perkins: undercover officers posed as inmates alongside Jason Zapata in a Riverside County holding cell. When Zapata stayed quiet, a uniformed sheriff’s deputy stepped in repeatedly to “stimulate” the conversation, and that is where the operation changed character.

A Perkins operation works only because the suspect does not know he is talking to police. The moment a known, uniformed deputy inserted himself, it stopped resembling an inmate conversation and became the very thing the Miranda decision was written to check. 

The uniformed deputy then staged a fake lineup and falsely told Zapata a witness had identified him as the killer. Zapata, alone without a lawyer, asked for an attorney before discussing the  murder. Instead of stopping, the uniformed deputy returned him to the cell, announced he was being charged with murder, and the undercover officers immediately resumed questioning him. 

The Fourth District Court of Appeal found this created the same pressure as a direct interrogation, calling it a “police-dominated atmosphere” tainted by a known, uniformed officer’s participation, and ruled the statements inadmissible. 

Zapata does not show Perkins operations are flawed. It shows what happens when one stops  being a Perkins operation at all. The moment the uniformed deputy took over and lied directly to Zapata, the encounter became an “old-fashioned interrogation” wearing Perkins operation clothing. 

Concerns about coercion, reliability and secrecy trace back to one root: how interviews are  conducted in custody. Traditional interrogation tactics rely on fake lineups, polygraphs and false evidence ploys — tactics that modern research shows degrade, not improve, information quality.

The answer is not to eliminate a lawful tool like Perkins operations. It is to modernize the culture that pushes officers toward heavy-handed tactics, and to keep undercover operations undercover, rather than letting known officers turn them into interrogations. Science-based interviewing, built on rapport and cognitive principles, consistently produce more reliable information. 

Perkins operations have real value. But the future of trusted policing lies in science-based  interviewing and a culture that respects rights, improves reliability and builds community trust, delivering justice for victims while upholding the Constitution.