Deadly Silence: Stop Snitching's Fatal Legacy

By Ayah Young, March 28, 2008

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We all learned in the schoolyard that no one likes a tattletale. But when issues of theft, rape, and murder are involved, is it so wrong to tell?

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In 2004, a DVD called Stop Snitching began to circulate in Baltimore, Maryland. The homemade film featured self-proclaimed drug dealers who issued violent threats against people who reported any information about their crimes to the police. An immediate underground success, this film brought snitching to the forefront of hip-hop culture and soon after its release, t-shirts with an image of a stop sign bearing the phrase "Stop Snitching" began to appear on the streets. The message was assimilated into hip-hop lyrics, and in October of 2005, stop snitching was brought to a national audience by an article about the t-shirts in the New York Times.

Snitching's Many Meanings

So what exactly is snitching? Dr. Rick Frei, an applied psychology professor at the Community College of Philadelphia has been working with a team of student researchers to determine just that. In an effort known as the Snitching Project, Frei and his students developed a questionnaire that they administered to nearly 1500 community college students. The resulting data illustrated that a wide variety of definitions exist. While 82.6 percent of students polled identified that ratting someone else out to get out of a crime would be considered snitching, other activities -- tattling on a brother or sister, reporting a classmate cheating on an exam, helping the police set someone up, picking a suspect out of a police lineup, or answering questions at from police at the scene of the crime -- could also be considered snitching.

Cooperating witnesses often fear retaliation from those they've informed upon, and frequently the fear of physical harm or death is so intense that it causes witnesses to remain silent. Without witnesses to speak out, more crimes go unsolved. So when the "Stop Snitching" campaign became national, its reception by police and the general public was less than favorable. People were quick to blame the t-shirts, and hip-hop, as the cause of the problem.

In a 60 Minutes special called "Stop Snitching" that aired on April 22, 2007, social activist and author Geoffrey Canada placed blame for unsolved crimes in urban communities directly on hip-hop, stating emphatically, "Rappers are preaching anarchy." He went on to articulate, "The message is, go out and do things that will destroy you, that will get you locked up in jail, that will ruin your relationships, that will estrange you from your kids, that's what this music is preaching." He believes that some hip-hop music is the driving force behind violence in the streets.

Geoffrey Canada's hostility toward this music stems from a personal experience. Israel Ramirez, a student whom he mentored and loved like a son was shot and killed while providing security on the set of a Busta Rhymes music video. With a possible dozen witnesses to the crime, and no one willing to speak with the police, it's easy to see how Canada would readily place the blame of this unsolved crime on hip-hop itself.

In another famous instance from the same show, rapper Cam'ron controversially outlined his "code of ethics" to host Anderson Cooper: "If I knew a serial killer was living next door to me, I wouldn't call and tell anybody on him." This clip outraged average Americans and sensationalized the correlation between hip-hop and the credo of street silence.

Music as Menace

The music industry has long been blamed for violent behavior. When the infamous shootings occurred at Columbine High School in 1999, the media was quick to implicate Marilyn Manson's music as a cause for Klebold and Harris' killing spree.

But does music shape society? Or is music merely a reflection of preexisting ideals within society? As a part of the Snitching Project's study, participants were asked about their music listening habits. The report stated, "While over one-third of all students said that they listened to music that explicitly said snitching was bad, only 5.5 percent of students said that the music that they listened to influenced their opinion of snitching." In a discussion with Dr. Frei he explained, "It may be that people are not really influenced by the music that they listen to. Or it might be that people seek out music that confirms their own personal worldview. While the 'Stop Snitching' campaign has probably influenced some people, I think most people didn't trust the police long before Cam'ron ever recorded a song."

A Historical Distrust

Dr. Frei has got a point. In an interview with Abel Habtegeorgies, communications manager at Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and Kijani Obalaye Tafari, director of their Bay Area PoliceWatch Program, the two were quick to stress that while at a surface level anti-snitching campaigns may appear ignorant, they need to be understood in a broader historical context.

They trace the origins of "stop snitching" campaigns back to the late 1960s and '70s when the Black Power Movement took form. People fighting for civil rights began to realize that the police were not there to protect them when, in the process of working toward equity, authorities inflicted violence on black communities. The injustice was so severe that the Black Panther Party was formed to track police violence. In this context, a snitch became known as someone who turned on the community by reporting Panther Party and civil rights activists to the FBI.

"Because of the distrust, you had communities turning to them themselves and working with one another in a neighborhood saying 'lets not go to the police, because the police are the ones who beat us up, and brutalize us, who take from our communities' -- that's all they had known at that point. The police were definitely not seen as allies," explained Habtegeorgies.

Tafari went on to say that "Back in the days that the Panthers were at their height, and even before then, there was a strong sense of community, and a strong sense of belonging and ownership and community pride. The place [where] you lived was your community and everybody felt ownership and a connection, and accountability to that community."

The problem now, according to Habtegeorgies and Tafari, is that the sense of pride and accountability in these communities is missing, but the legacy of anti-snitching attitudes lives on. Today lower class metropolitan areas lack jobs, education, and resources, and people are left to fend for themselves by whatever means possible. Often, the only options people feel they have involve participating in illegal activities to earn income.

Informant Woes

In an era where each is out to get their own, the problem of snitches working with the police is very different. The same message, lacking the community context, makes for an entirely different reality. Individuals, who may be trying to save themselves jail time, can make a deal with the police in exchange for information regarding another wanted party. When that person gets locked up, the snitch gains enemies, further perpetuating violence on the streets.

Police work with snitches and informants has a checkered history. Tafari explains how in his work with Bay Area PoliceWatch, he has frequently encountered kids brought in on charges who don't know their rights. They are offered a deal and are willing to say just about anything to get off the hook. "The really bad part is that these deals they cut with people might not even be [based on] the truth."

This issue of false information has serious real-life implications. In a study conducted by the Northwestern University School of Law Center on wrongful convictions, they found that of 111 capital cases studied since 1973, 45 percent of wrongful convictions were a result of snitches (PDF). That's an overwhelming percentage of people who were given death sentences as a result of bad information.

In his book Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice, author Ethan Brown discusses how the legal system is at fault, bearing little accountability for its use of snitches. He describes how under Section 5K1.1 of the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which state that defendants can provide substantial assistance in an investigation in exchange for a reduced sentence, "There are usually no legal consequences for cooperators who lie to a grand jury or commit perjury on the witness stand." Furthermore, there is no official limit to how many times someone can use a 5K deal to his or her advantage. This allows informants of questionable authority to effectively work around the legal system "and become savvy 5K game players."

Snitching Solutions?

So what is to be done? We can't just ban "Stop Snitching" messages from the culture and hope that the problem goes away. Brown suggests that we restore faith in the legal system by refocusing our federal sentencing policies, including placing limits on the number of times that an individual can use a 5K motion, and requiring that information provided by cooperators be corroborated with evidence. These suggestions, if put into practice, could have an extremely positive affect on the quality of "justice" in America.

But while these measures may help to reduce crime and unjust sentencing, they are a band-aid solution for the issue's root cause. Beyond our current judicial system lies the reality that high levels of crime in this country often stem from a history of institutionalized racism and classism that denies some populations opportunities to fair work opportunities and safer environments. This lack of resources and development has had a disastrous effect on America's low-income urban communities. As Abel Habtegeorgies bluntly stated, "If our urban areas weren't so neglected and if greater investment in communities like parks and recreation programs, job training programs, and jobs existed, you wouldn't have people resorting to illegal opportunities."

With continual cuts to vital resources like education, it is not likely that we will see the government step in to enhance these kinds of services anytime soon. The task of revitalizing these communities has fallen on the shoulders of concerned citizens and grassroots organizations like Ella Baker Center, Elementz, Youth Uprising, and H.O.M.E.Y, who are engaging youth and community members in constructive dialogue and offering them inspiration, training and empowerment. And there are people like Dr. Frei who are working to understand social attitudes about snitching and building classroom curriculum to address the issue.

While the work these people and organizations do is vital to the future of our cities, it is important to remember that to create radical change in our society requires everyone's participation, consciousness and diligence. So the next time you see a "Stop Snitching" shirt or read about uncooperative witnesses, ask yourself: "What is my community or city doing to empower itself, form stronger familial bonds and improve not just my safety, but everyone's?" If you don't have a good answer, it's time to get to work, and clean our collective dirty laundry.

Ayah Young is a freelance writer, activist and performer who lives and works in the Bay Area. She holds a BA in Cultural Anthropology from San Francisco State University and is a Young People For fellow. Her writing has appeared in the Feminist Review Blog, The Tripwire, and SN&R.