Comments on: Start Snitchin'!

Start Snitchin'!

jonson — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:36:22 -0800

Crime Stoppers (motto: get paid to snitch!) is the Yang to the Stop Snitchin' (motto: stop snitchin!) campaign's Yin. This commercial, which I'm relatively convinced is not a parody, best illustrates the consumer value proposition behind crime stoppers.

By: hototogisu

hototogisu — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:41:43 -0800

So one turns people in for deck furniture?

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 13:43:14 -0800

We already have for-profit prisons, why not for-profit prosecutions? Drop a dime, earn a dollar.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:02:18 -0800

We've had CrimeStoppers here in Canada for as long as I can remember (Sadly, our commercials have never featured a trio of hotties who can talk to the television). As a wee one, I always hoped to stumble upon some crime and net me a cool $2k.

By: Frank Grimes

Frank Grimes — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:12:43 -0800

Snitches get stitches (and cash!).

By: champthom

champthom — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:24:01 -0800

I prefer the slogan "Snitchin' is bitchin'."

By: Simon!

Simon! — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:33:33 -0800

I hadn't realized that CrimeStoppers had previously been a radical Canadian thing. Like Alvy says, it was a good balance tipper when I was a kid. Having an awesome, illegal secret will always be cooler than being a good citizen, but they're both way less cool than minibikes. I'm just saying, with that kind of money, you could buy, like, two minibikes. They'd both be red, but one would have tiger stripes.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:38:11 -0800

I prefer the slogan "Snitchin' is bitchin'." A local PSA for wearing seatbelts features 10-12 year old hip-hoppers dancing around singing "clickin' is kickin'"

By: chrominance

chrominance — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:40:22 -0800

You mean this kind of thing isn't popular in the States? Hell, I can even recite the number they'd give out on Canadian television after showing a vignette on the news about how a Crimestoppers tip brought someone to justice. (1-800-222-TIPS, as spoken by the always awesome Mark Dailey.)

By: the_bone

the_bone — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:52:25 -0800

This is probably a good place to reveal that, at an LA MeFi meetup last fall, jonson showed up wearing a rad "Stop Snitchin'" t-shirt. [NOT SNITCHIST]

By: PeterMcDermott

PeterMcDermott — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:55:45 -0800

the_bone, stop snitchin' on jonson's lack of sartorial taste

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 14:58:52 -0800

In the case of drug laws, I don't agree with this—but with more serious crimes? Why not? Sure, I have a no snitching personal ethos for everyday sort of stuff, the kinds of things everyone deals with in daily life. And I don't agree with the drug laws. But violent crimes? Definitely. Property crimes? Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, yeah, Crime Stoppers has been in the states where I've lived since at least the late 70s or so.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:06:14 -0800

Ending the war on drugs would increase drastically the respect for the law and law enforcement in the US, in my opinion.

By: quin

quin — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:12:44 -0800

I kept waiting for Jim Dangle, Junior, or Jones to show up. Sadly, they did not.

By: dhartung

dhartung — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:34:50 -0800

Is this now a debate on the War on (Some) Drugs? I'm no fan of the prosecution imbalances, but when there's a dozen strange cars a day parked up the block, I'm on the phone.

By: blue_beetle

blue_beetle — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:41:34 -0800

I've always enjoyed the CRIMESTOPPERS^TM reenactments with the creepy music. One more thing that Canada gave the world.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:49:53 -0800

D'oh.

By: illovich

illovich — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 15:57:39 -0800

When the neighbors up the street are having some sort of ding-a-ling circus, I like to shake the crime stick. My residential neighborhood doesn't take kindly to any kind of noisy ruckus, or loud horsin' off.

By: merelyglib

merelyglib — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 16:58:39 -0800

Hey, snitchin' is big bucks!

By: yerfatma

yerfatma — Sat, 28 Apr 2007 18:02:13 -0800

I have a no snitching personal ethos for everyday sort of stuff And yet you insist on telling us.

By: eritain

eritain — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 03:38:51 -0800

Visit any one of my three ice-cream precinct locations.

By: jcruelty

jcruelty — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 17:29:58 -0800

The "Stop Snitchin' " T-shirt drama looks, at first blush, like a dustup over a simple counterculture message launched by some urban criminal entrepreneurs: that friends don't snitch on friends. But it is, in fact, a symptom of a more insidious reality that has largely escaped public notice: For the last 20 years, state and federal governments have been creating criminal snitches and setting them loose in poor, high-crime communities. The backlash against snitches embodies a growing national recognition that snitching is dangerous public policy—producing bad information, endangering innocent people, letting dangerous criminals off the hook, compromising the integrity of police work, and inciting violence and distrust in socially vulnerable neighborhoods... (from slate)