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† Criminal InJustice is a weekly series devoted to taking action against inequities in the U.S. criminal justice system. Nancy A. Heitzeg, Professor of Sociology and Race/Ethnicity, is the Editor of CI. Kay Whitlock, co-author of Queer (In)Justice, is contributing editor of CI. Criminal Injustice is published every Wednesday at 6 pm.
Collective Non-Cooperation
by nancy a heitzeg
One of the least discussed realities of criminal injustice is this: the entire endeavor rests on the cooperation of everyday citizens. Uniform Crime Report (UCR) data primarily depends on citizens to call and report crimes to the police. Gaps in UCR data (i.e. unaccounted for crimes that are neither detected by police nor reported by citizens) are estimated by administering the National Crime Victimization Survey to a random subset of the population. The over-whelming majority of everything that is known about crime, especially the Index Offenses, comes from us.
Further, Arrest Rates or Clearance Rates rely heavily – not on super-tech CSI techniques – but on victim and/or bystander descriptions. Prosecutors depend on a snitch system of informants to further investigations especially in so-called “victimless” crimes such as drug deals. The courts count on 90% of all those charged to accept a “negotiated guilty plea” otherwise known as plea-bargaining.
Professor Alexandra Natapoff on Snitching
The Criminal InJustice System is Nothing without our Cooperation.
As it becomes increasingly clear that reporting crime does little to protect us and that state violence often further victimizes those that seek help, what if we stopped calling ? What if some of us already have?
As police become increasingly violent in their responses to even 911 calls for help, what if we stopped calling them?
As the Drug War system of mass incarceration becomes ever more dependent on confidential informants, what if we stopped snitching?
As we are increasingly asked to give up our constitutional rights, what if, as Michelle Alexander wonders, we went “to trial and crashed the system”?
What would that look like? How could that be collectively organized? What alternatives would need to be in place?
Think about it..
In the meantime, Know Your Rights.
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