Jailhouse Stings Happening More Frequently in California

Here are the morning’s top stories on Thursday, July 16, 2026

• A law enforcement practice that’s being used in California jails is coming under increasing scrutiny. In what’s known as a “Perkins operation,” undercover agents attempt to elicit confessions from people booked at county jails. The tactic has helped secure hundreds of murder convictions. But critics say they are coercive, can produce false confessions and disproportionately target people of color. 
• Scorching heat has hit much of California this week. In Southern California, triple digit temperatures were recorded in cities across the region on Wednesday.

When Jason Zapata was arrested for allegedly firing a gun into the air, he was thrown in a dimly lit holding cell with trash strewn across the floor and a broken payphone on the wall. It had nothing more than a rusted toilet, sink and three wooden benches that looked as though they had never been cleaned. Two older men with shaved heads sat in the back, eyeing the 24-year-old’s wristband that the jail used to display his personal information. One was over 6 feet tall and 300 pounds. The other was covered in tattoos from head to foot. They were gang members, they said, in jail for murder. It was 2015 and Zapata, a slight Hispanic man at 5 feet 9 inches tall and 180 pounds, had never been incarcerated before. His new cellmates in the Riverside County jail told him they had spent years in and out of the most violent prisons. As they boasted about the people they had stabbed to death, Zapata tried to hide how fast his heart was beating. “Your life is in their hands,” Zapata told CalMatters in a recent interview. “Anything could happen to you in that type of environment. Not everybody makes it out. You gotta do what you need to do to survive in this place.”

When they pressed him about why he was in jail, he tried to tread lightly as he maintained his innocence. But as the hours wore on, the men accused him of disrespecting them by not coming clean. Eventually, they threatened him with a “calentada” — Spanish prison slang for a beating or stabbing. Three months later, Zapata learned it was all a ruse: His cellmates were undercover law enforcement agents attempting to obtain information about an unsolved murder from the previous year. They were part of what is known as a “Perkins operation,” a controversial law enforcement tactic in which a police officer or civilian poses as an incarcerated person to elicit incriminating statements from a suspect. Perkins operations are widespread in California and have helped secure hundreds of murder convictions. District attorneys say they are a powerful investigative tool that can exonerate people or solve crimes. The tactic is so popular that law enforcement officials from Riverside County, a hotbed of Perkins operations, share tips on how to conduct them at conferences around the state. But the operations are under increasing scrutiny from judges, scholars and defense attorneys, who say they are coercive, risk false confessions, and disproportionately target Black and Latino people.

A CalMatters analysis of cases in Los Angeles, San Diego, Riverside and Santa Clara counties shows that Perkins operations include false evidence ploys, jail cells outfitted with recording devices, and cash payments of up to $3,000 per day to undercover operatives, also known as Perkins agents. The agents, often described in court filings as older and physically larger than their targets, frequently presented themselves as experienced gang members with a history of violence. In some cases, as many as five were placed in a cell with one person.

California has seen previous legislative and legal challenges to Perkins operations, but its high court has never intervened. In 2019, the California Supreme Court rejected a petition to review the case of a Kern County man who was targeted in a Perkins operation one day after he invoked his Miranda rights in a police interrogation. Although the court declined to hear the case, Justice Goodwin Liu had harsh words for law enforcement. “The use of deceptive schemes to elicit confessions from suspects who have invoked their Miranda rights appears to be a pervasive police practice in California,” he wrote. “How is it possible, one might ask, that the protections of Miranda are so easily evaded?”

Perkins operations are distinct because of their timing: They typically take place after a person has been arrested and before charges are filed. That timing is critical, because once someone has been formally charged, Sixth Amendment rights kick in and the person cannot be interrogated without a lawyer present. Protections under the Fifth Amendment, including Miranda rights, guarantee that a suspect will not be subject to custodial interrogation without a warning. Those protections, resulting from the famous 1966 United States Supreme Court case Miranda v. Arizona, are designed to guard against coercion in a police-dominated environment. Once invoked, all interrogation must stop. But roughly two decades later, the court held that statements made by a suspect during a Perkins operation are voluntary; therefore, Miranda does not apply.

Many communities across California hit triple digit temperatures this week as the summer heat wave continues.

The National Weather Service issued an extreme heat warning for much of the Southern California region that is in effect through Thursday at 8 p.m.

The elevated temperatures are posing a high risk of heat-related illnesses, especially for people over 65, young children and other sensitive populations. People who work outdoors or do not have air conditioning are also particularly at risk.

Health officials say people should avoid outdoor activity during peak heat if possible, stay hydrated and check on children and elders.