“Do you want to cooperate or go to jail?” is how it was put to me. Not one to cooperate with people after they kick my door in and hog tie me, I went to jail (freezing my ass off in my underwear with no shoes).
Call it cooperating, snitching, ratting, information bartering or witnessing for pay… It all amounts to the same thing: criminals being rewarded with money or judicial leniency in exchange for information (real or otherwise) that can be used to convict someone else. Who hasn’t heard the catch phrase, “give three, go free”?
What’s so gross about selling others out because you can’t man up to your own crimes? It’s blatantly self serving and commodifies trust and loyalty, values without which there is no community.
I’m not talking about civilian witnesses who feel it is their civic duty to report a crime. I’m talking about sloppy criminals who adhere to the mantra ,”Can’t do the time? Drop a dime.”
The conflict of interests inherent with every use of a CI ought to render any evidence they provide dubious at best. Yet the criminal justice system and law enforcement rely more on snitches today than ever before. Statistics released by the Bureau of Justice show that a third of those doing federal time on drug trafficking charges are there because of a snitch who assisted prosecutors in exchange for a reduction on their own sentence.
This increasing reliance on snitches compromises police integrity. It’s easy to see how a rogue cop (ya know, someone like, say, Scotty Bach) could routinely abuse the snitch system, exaggerating the reliability of an informant to establish probable cause in obtaining a search warrant for any location he fancied.
Frame your questions correctly and the right in custody informant will tell you anything you want to hear. As Scotty Bach said to me when I declined to tell him what he wanted to hear, “Guess we’ll have to keep kicking in doors, then”. He knew someone would take the bait, just had to find them.
Law enforcement themselves appear to value loyalty, trust and prudence. I mean, how often do you see a cop step up to rat on his corrupt compatriots? It’s pretty rare. They just figure most suspects are desperate and scandalous enough that they’re unlikely to have any qualms about it. Why work when you can get some lowlife to do it for you, for free even?
Break the cycle. Don’t give up your right to remain silent. Don’t do the cops work for them. Don’t incriminate yourself and others by fraternizing with Major Crimes Task Force detectives… they’re not your friends. Don’t kick it with someone who put your friend in prison like they wouldn’t do the same thing to you. Not ready for the consequences? Then stop fucking jaywalking, already!
“Some come in the form of co-dependence
Lotta times only end up being co-defendants
Ten bucks say they tell for a lower sentence
And leave you up in jail, begging for a penance
It don’t make no sense, what happened to the loyalty?
Honor amongst crooks, trust amongst royalty”
-MF Doom
Tags: 5th Amendment, confidential informant, detectives, police, snitches, snitching, SWAT
