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Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice

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I can't tell you how happy I am to see this book published. I don't think Americans have even a vague idea of how much trouble an innocent person can be in once they come under serious scrutiny by the criminal justice system. Arrest warrants can be based on flimsy evidence and insubstantial claims that do not have to be accounted for. Often, innocent defendants are in the position of having to prove they are NOT guilty, and unscrupulous use of plea bargaining can make a false guilty plea seem like a much better deal than the crapshoot of a jury trial. The cost of a serious criminal defense can bankrupt most families and public defenders are worthless plea bargain machines. It can be a true nightmare scenario.

What needs to be better understood is that there is vast difference between someone actually being unequivocally guilty of a crime, and there being enough "evidence" - often in the form of testimony and circumstantial evidence - to convict them. During the 1960's and 1970's I was a Special Deputy under four Sheriffs, and have published a number of investigative books. The cases I ran into where I felt that injustice had been done were depressingly common. The cases passed legal muster in the courts, but the outcomes were tragically wrong.

Police informants, often criminals themselves or defendants trying to bargain their way out of a very bad situation, account for a fantastic number of criminal cases leading to conviction - in some jurisdictions nearly 50%, especially where narcotics are involved. Law enforcement justifies this situation by claiming that they don't have the resources to actually develop good physical evidence or reliable surveillance, and without dubious informants many guilty defendants would go free. In other words, convicting the innocent is part of the cost of reigning in the bad guys, a kind of "kill them all and let God sort them out" rationale. This kind of thinking has ramifications far beyond the criminal justice system.

I don't mean to imply that most criminal defendants are innocent -- most are clearly guilty -- but the number of wrongful convictions is disturbingly high. If you're impressed by the number of capital defendants cleared by the Innocence Project -- now over 250 -- think how many people are wrongfully convicted of lesser crimes that don't draw nearly the attention of a murder trial and where convictions are expected and routine.

I think this book is a genuine and very necessary contribution to understanding this problem.

Incidents such as that of activist Brandon Darby informing on fellow activists, and the Tulia, Texas drug arrests scandal are but two examples of a trend that law enforcement has increasingly relied on as a method for policing, but which is increasingly returning disastrous results. The use of individuals to provide information leading to arrests, in exchange for lesser charges, but whose offered details are often fraught with inconsistencies, is the subject of Alexandra Natapoff's searing read Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice.

Use of snitches has been going on far longer than the Darby affair. African-American communities have seen law enforcement use informants to combat drugs and urban blight at the cost of community cohesion. In these neighborhoods, Natapoff says, police methods are more intrusive and the penal process treats young Black men harshly. Such tragedies make informants plentiful. The result of snitch culture in the Black community is essentially that police permit informants to engage in criminal activity, foment distrust in neighborhoods and encourage retaliation. In the end, informants do little more than destabilize Black communities and undercut police legitimacy as well as individuals' belief in fairness.

However, it is the stories of desperation that dot Natapoff's writing which are incredibly striking. Fundamentally, the author reminds us, informants are people trying to escape long jail sentences by providing assistance to police. Such a relationship lends itself to producing information as a matter of self-preservation, and that their continued performance will keep them out of jail and presumably able to break the law so long as they are of use to law enforcement. Therein lies the criminal justice conundrum, of what reliance on snitches says about the justice system itself.

The hip-hop culture is the best-known proponent of the 'stop snitching" phenomenon. The character of 'stop snitching," the author suggests, is a symbol of the Black community's distrust of police in the wake of the War on Drugs and the long sentences young Black men receive for what is often faulty testimony. Exploration of that relationship is offered here, and is probably one of the best presentations of why the music culture has been so associated with resistance to snitching.

The author acknowledges social movements have long known the problems caused by informants. In Snitching, Natapoff points out informants end up acting with impunity, and their use raises important constitutional questions related to interference with organized groups' First Amendment rights. Political organizers should carefully note the behavior sanctioned for informants, as the actions now famous in the Darby case -- most importantly accusations the two activists arrested were coaxed into illegal activity -- have long been permitted of informants.

To be clear, the author is not opposed to the use of police utilizing plea bargaining of the nature described in the book. However, Natapoff argues law enforcement's rampant use of informants has implications that threaten transparency and in some ways democracy.

Ms. Natapoff's book combines the best of scholarly research and social activism. (There are almost 50 pages of footnotes.) She documents the the abuses being done by the criminal justice system. She comes down hard on how the system destabilizes neighborhoods by creating crime to stop crime. Some courts have accepted an entrapment defense in certain cases. Confidential informants, she writes, are needed and can be useful IF they are used responsibly. It's a big IF because rewarded testimony is inherently unreliable unless corroborated.

The problem, IMO, is that most Americans have been so conditioned to fear "drugs" and "the other" that they have entrusted their safety to the criminal justice system. This has allowed police and prosecutors to target people they think most Americans want them to target. It has been the rule of men rather than the rule of law, not something Americans should be proud of.

In her "Conclusion" She summarizes the problem and proposes reasonable -- and politically practical -- steps to fix it. It is a book that can serve as a reference point for legislators.

A very good book by Alexandra on the sensitive and delicate topic of snitching that uses real life examples to show how law enforcement totally uses snitches and informers to make their cases. The stories and portrayals are strong. To check out more stories on drug dealers who got snitched on check out Gorilla Convict and order Street Legends Vol. 1 and 2.