From Radley Balko's otherwise excellent piece on the war on drugs:
These inherent problems with the informant system have given rise to the “Stop Snitch'n” movement, which, whatever you may think of it, has revealed the troubling extent to which entire communities in America have completely given up on the people charged with protecting them, even when it comes to helping with investigations of violent crime. Many understandably find the “Stop Snitch'n” movement repugnant, but there's no question that it's symptomatic of a larger problem: In many urban areas, the drug war has completely eradicated respect for the rule of law.
I don't disagree with Balko's ultimate point, that the conduct of law enforcement in the drug war has eradicated respect for law enforcement. (Although the unfortunate history of American "law enforcement" in the black community has had a great deal of help in that respect unrelated to the war on drugs.) But there is no Stop Snitchin' "movement." There is a T-Shirt. People don't need a slogan to figure out that cops don't live there in their neighborhood, but the murderers they might speak to the police about do. Simply put, the cops can't protect them, and people don't want to live their lives looking over their shoulder. People don't talk to the cops not just because they're seen as illegitimate, but because they don't want to put themselves in danger.
-- A. Serwer
