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Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice

4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

Our criminal justice system favors defendants who know how to play the "5K game": criminals who are so savvy about the cooperation process that they repeatedly commit serious crimes knowing they can be sent back to the streets if they simply cooperate with prosecutors. In Snitch, investigative reporter Ethan Brown shows through a compelling series of case profiles how the sentencing guidelines for drug-related offenses, along with the 5K1.1 section, have unintentionally created a "cottage industry of cooperators," and led to fabricated evidence. The result is wrongful convictions and appallingly gruesome crimes, including the grisly murder of the Harvey family in Richmond, Virginia and the well-publicized murder of Imette St. Guillen in New York City.

This cooperator-coddling criminal justice system has ignited the infamous "Stop Snitching" movement in urban neighborhoods, deplored by everyone from the NAACP to the mayor of Boston for encouraging witness intimidation. But as Snitch shows, the movement is actually a cry against the harsh sentencing guidelines for drug-related crimes, and a call for hustlers to return to "old school" street values, like: do the crime, do the time. Combining deep knowledge of the criminal justice system with frontline true crime reporting, Snitch is a shocking and brutally troubling report about the state of American justice when it's no longer clear who are the good guys and who are the bad.

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Brown (Queens Reigns Supreme) presents the case that harsh minimum sentencing laws have led federal prosecutors to rely too much on unreliable informants and cooperators, and too little on solid investigative work; the sentences are also, he argues, feeding the anti-snitch movement. Brown correctly notes that long minimum sentences give defendants greater incentive to lie in exchange for a reduced sentence, and he relates anecdotes about deals with unsavory criminals. But these cases don't provide any analysis of whether such arrangements are really antithetical to justice and corrupt the system. For instance, in discussing the agreement struck with unrepentant Mafia turncoat Sammy Gravano, the author doesn't assess the possibility that such plea bargains with mob leaders have contributed to the decline of traditional organized crime. Further, the author's critique of pre-emptive indictments in alleged terrorist plots based on informers could have given more weight to the legitimate fears that waiting too long to stop such a plot may be too risky. The serious issues raised by the federal government's reliance on informants and cooperative witnesses merit a more thorough and nuanced analysis than Brown provides. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

"Brown's evidence is overwhelming" -- Legal Times, December 24th, 2007

"This chilling investigative report explores an evil that affects almost every American...
Snitch is necessary reading as we go into a presidential election year." -- Penthouse, December 2007 issue

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B001G7RCXE
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ PublicAffairs (November 27, 2007)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.44 x 6.49 x 1.06 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 21 ratings

About the author

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Ethan Brown
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Ethan Brown is the author of four investigative reporting-driven books about crime and the criminal legal system: Murder in the Bayou, Queens Reigns Supreme, Snitch, and Shake the Devil Off.

He has written for New York magazine, The New York Observer, Wired, GQ, Mother Jones, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, and The Village Voice.

He also worked for nearly a decade as a mitigation specialist for attorneys representing indigent defendants facing the death penalty in the Deep South and elsewhere.

Currently, Ethan is Enterprise Editor of The Appeal, which produces original journalism about the most significant drivers of mass incarceration, state and local criminal legal systems.

A five part docu-series based on Murder in the Bayou premiered on Showtime on September 13, 2019.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
21 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Reviewed in the United States on January 28, 2014
The American legal system has been taken over by government informers, cooperators, and agent provocateurs and there is no more honest police investigation of crimes, and the gov't has the *potential to now begin spying on everyone. Except now, due to the exposures of the NSA, we do know that the government is spying on everyone in the world, including all of the citizens of the USA. Ethan Brown's take is that the prosecutions wrought by snitches in drug and racketeering cases opened the door for paramilitary policing, widespread gov't spying, and abuse of the rights of innocent citizens. He could add that this is a threat to the entire human rights of citizens and the people of the world, but he does not have to, because we see this unfolding everyday with the creation of a corporate-gov't police state. Read this book to understand how all this functions, and how snitching undermines all freedom and democratic rights.
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2022
Have only read half of it, but so far, outstandingly stellar!
Reviewed in the United States on May 2, 2013
This book is a good read, but I just personally believe in a bit more radical way of dealing with the problem than the writer. The writer does make an excellent description of the problem of informers and cooperators in the 'justice' system, however, that I agree with wholeheartedly.
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2014
This book exposes the complete lack of ethics among Federal prosecutors. Anyone who thinks that Federal prosecutors have the public's best interest in mind will change their opinion after reading Snitch.
Reviewed in the United States on July 18, 2013
After reading Queens Reigns Supreme, I was eagerly waiting for this book to be released. Ethan Brown is a great writer and investigative reporter! Would love to read more books and articles by him
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2008
This is an excellent and completely horrifying book. Academic critics like Prof. William Stuntz have documented the "pathological politics" of federal criminal law - an "iron triangle" relationship in which (1) the electorate induces (2) the legislative branch to increase the prosecutorial power of (3) the executive at the expense of the poor, withering judiciary. Sentencing guidelines -and especially stiff mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenders- have raised the stakes of trial immensely. When defendants are given the choice to either: A) plead guilty to 1-2 years behind bars or B) exercise their constitutional right to trial and risk decades, it's simply no wonder that fewer and fewer cases make it into the courtroom. And this means less transparency, fewer appeals, less judicial review, and...yes...WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS! If, as Brandeis had it, "sunlight is the best disinfectant" who knows what is now growing in the darkness?

There can be no doubt that the current regime has turned US Attorneys into Grand Inquisitors. But should we worry? Why not "just trust the Government?" After all, there can be no witchhunts without false accusations and false confessions, right? This is where Ethan Brown's book makes a truly original contribution, and to my mind delivers the coup de grace to the existing federal system. The author demonstrates how that system runs on a strict and steady diet of "incentivized witnesses" - snitches in common parlance. Mandatory minimums can be a great incentive to lie and exaggerate if you are a "target" looking to roll over on your associates. But they also create perverse secondary incentives - in federal investigators and prosecutors - to skip the expensive and boring independent investigation. When all these snitches are coming to you with free eyewitness information, why bother with the hard police work? Brown persausively and devastatingly argues that the snitch has become a crutch for the Government, to the severe detriment of the rights of the accused and the integrity of the system.

This is an extremely important book because it is written from the perspective of a serious journalist for the lay public. Practitioners frequently lose the perspective to see how truly bizzare and unfair the system has become. The public, on the other hand, can't be expected to take much interest in the various subsection headings of the US Code. Ethan Brown bridges the gap for the lay public, and one can only hope this book brings some attention to this Kafkaesque nightmare.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2008
Highly recommended read. I don't know where Brown's from but he definitely delivers a horrifically accurate image of growing up in drug-plagued New York in the 80's in Queens Reigns Supreme. In this recent work, Snitch, Brown tackles the flaws in police-informant relationships. Specifically, the measures informants reach when their freedom's at stake. Brown also sheds light on the dangers of stat-hungry prosecutors purely seeking conviction numbers before justice. If you have the slightest interest in criminal justice (or injustice) buy, borrow or steal this book. This is the ugly truth to the story of police cooperation....I wish this book would been published prior to the hype around Stop Snitching so it could have served as some sort of reference....one thing's for sure, Cam'ron is still a jackass.
7 people found this helpful
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Reviewed in the United States on December 3, 2007
"Snitch is a must read. With the current fascination with gangsters in America, and gangsta rap read what really goes on behind the scenes. All the bravado and thuggish attitudes is just for show because when these so-called gangstas get behind closed doors they are snitches on whoever and whatever, fabricating and lying on people. That is the truth of American Justice and Ethan shows it all with no punches." [...]
7 people found this helpful
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