I have seen a bunch of posts, mostly on Reddit, where someone posts a photo or video of someone breaking the law, generally an egregious traffic violation, and some people deride the poster for being a “snitch.” “Mind your own business.” “Are you the police?”
I can understand why criminals have sanctions for snitching on one another, not because it’s morally reprehensible but because you could get killed.
I can understand that if you see someone committing a petty crime, like spitting on the sidewalk, you wouldn’t dial 911.
I can understand not weaponizing the law to get someone in trouble for the sake of getting them in trouble, like if you found out your asshole boss cheated on his taxes.
But I don’t understand the proscription of a citizen exercising free speech to report or show someone breaking a law that most of us obey and that poses a danger to other people, like driving 120 on I-66 or running red lights. Why is any reporting of a crime “snitching”?
If all you’re doing is posting a video, you’re not reporting anything. Does law enforcement spend their time trawling through random social media posts in the hopes of catching someone in the act? If you actually sent the video to the police and it actually had actionable information in it (like the license number of a robbery getaway car), that would be reporting a crime. But I don’t think that’s what’s happening.
I do wonder at the motivation of people posting such videos. What do they expect to have happen? What do they hope for? In the latter case, I suspect they are hoping for validation of their outrage (remember when we used to call it Recreational Outrage? I don’t remember seeing that in a long time). Maybe some of those responses are people who also don’t understand why anyone wants to post a video of someone speeding.
I think this is 100% the case. They are looking for solidarity. But ironically a lot of times people turn on them. “You posted a video of someone drifting over into your lane but instead of hanging back to avoid an accident you went to wage battle against them. Of course you ended up on the shoulder.”
But let’s not confine the question to social media. Why such strong social pressure against “snitching,” whatever we define that to be?
Many people see the police as their enemy. Having the police arrest them can ruin a life, whether or not a conviction is gained. Employers are allowed to ask if you have ever been arrested, and some use that against you without regard to the aftermath. A lifetime of police harassment for “suspicious” behavior, or petty incidents, or DWB, can lead to massive resentment.
Of course, once snitch moved from the underworld into the general language, snitching became anything and everything, so that young kids can whine about their siblings snitching on them, and so can so-called adults. And internet trolls don’t mind their own business; they mind others and ruin everything. Take into account who’s doing the whining and why.
A cyclist has helped police catch hundreds of bad drivers - by sending officers countless video clips recorded on cameras on his bike.
The action by Tim, a cycling instructor from Birmingham, has resulted in scores of motorists receiving notices of intended prosecution from West Midlands Police.
“I came back from one bike ride and said ‘I’ve had enough, there’s something we have got to do about this’,” he told the BBC.
Police forces in England and Wales have revealed the public is sending them 150,000 clips every year, with an estimated 90% resulting in drivers being sanctioned.
The increase in the amount of footage filmed on helmet cameras, dashcams and mobile phones is leading to more prosecutions for dangerous driving.
Isn’t that kinda the opposite of snitching? Covering your ass in case a snitch tries to pin a crime on you? That’s another one of the reasons people don’t like snitching, it can be used to put the blame on the wrong party. And when the accused always insists the snitch is lying anyway.
If me and that cite, one of the key takeaways of that thread is that your dashcam will snitch on your every driving mistake imperfection leading up to a crash. Be very sure you want to subject yourself to that level of scrutiny.
You’re posting in the right place, but the people most likely to give you an answer are silent,
There are many threads here over the years full of “snitches’ll get you stitches” posts. I don’t get it. People want “the cops to do something” but they seem to think it happens magically. Every witness to a crime is a “snitch”.
And that’s not even touching on the people, including here on this board, that would not testify or aid the police in any way in prosecuting a family member, for crimes up to and including murder.,
At least as far as the Reddit commentary goes, some if it is tongue-in-cheek. It’s just a stock response, a way of (humorously) taking the side of the bad guy. Like if you were watching a movie and saw a melodrama villain tying the damsel to the tracks and said “heck yeah, serves her right!” It’s funnier the greater the magnitude of the offense - like, if you had a video of someone stealing a car. Then conversely, it can be more genuine for an offense that’s seen as trivial or even laudable - like someone shoplifting from a WalMart, which a lot of folks won’t even see as an immoral act.
Between those extremes - the humorously contrary and the genuinely trivial - I think you’ll account for most (though maybe not all) “stop snitchin’” comments.
I was talking about using the dash cam to show the snitches were wrong. The dash cam itself wasn’t snitching on anyone, and the police cam wasn’t snitching on the OP’s husband. The witnesses were snitching for some reason, probably thought they were doing their civic duty. Unfortunately our justice system places too much value on peoples faulty recollections.
