UNDERCOVER DECEPTION

Abstract

This article addresses the deception strategies deployed by undercover narcotics agents located in a moderate-sized midwestern municipality and offers a typology of deception based on four central components: rehearsal, appearance manipulation, verbal diversion, and physical diversion. Observations are then made concerning the implications of undercover deception for dramaturgical theory. The article provides a continuum of impression management plotted along the degree and nature of deception involved in each of three presentational categories: backstage, front stage and misrepresentational front stage, a new category. Data were drawn primarily from ethnographic interviews with 35 current and former agents.