The Sociology of Snitching

A man is gunned down in the middle of the street. There twenty people passing through, in, and around the area. No one sees a thing. Someone is beaten to death by four teens. There are fifteen people standing in the crowd around the victim, watching. When the police come around, no one steps forward.

The strong intimidation tactics of local gangs, thugs, and/or drug dealers enforce a stark code of silence in urban America. The intimidation doesn't stop at threats; there is extreme violence that often backs it up. However, if you go into those neighborhoods and ask the intimidators about the code of silence, a flimsy a different picture is painted. One thug told writer Jeremy Kahn, author of "The Story of a Snitch", that the intimidation was meant for the guys who sold out others in order to get out of a jail term. Those are the snitches, the guy explained.

The root of the word "snitch" comes from the prison yards, where criminals try desperately to obtain a get out of jail free card. They alert prosecutors to crimes of which they have knowledge. The prosecutors then exchange parole or sentence reduction for testimony.

Despite the criminal spin on the word, the term snitch has moved out of the jailhouses, and has come to the streets in the form of witness intimidation. Witnesses are threatened, bullied, and even assaulted to ensure that their testimony is never heard. Some find it just as easy to never come forward at all. Kahn's article, however, explores another reason why the witnesses refuse to come forward: anger. He explains that majority of the men in urban areas are in jail, and the police are seen as responsible for hauling them away. Kahn says that the rumors circulated throughout the communities, like crack being a CIA invention to destroy black men, don't make things easier. Kahn contends that the people simply choose to refuse to help the entity that has appeared to have hurt them so much.

Prosecutors are trying to gain back that confidence by providing witness protection for those who come forward. Legislators have even made witness tampering a federal offense punishable by the harsher sentencing standards of the federal courts. Despite their efforts, however, the number of witnesses coming forward with information on crimes has dropped dramatically. Kahn's article highlights several solutions to the problem of witness intimidation in the black community, however none can work until the urban black community is ready to change things itself.