* The Drug War: yet more unintended consequences, "no snitching"

Topics: Drug War
22 Apr 2007

From: Ervan Darnell

Regarding the ethic in black neighborhoods of never turning over evidence of any crime to the police:

>"In these neighborhoods, we are on the verge of, or maybe we already have lost, the rule of law," [criminologist] Kennedy says.
>
>The snitchin' credo is not just a product of hip hop music, he says. Nor are people simply afraid to come forward. As Professor Kennedy sees it, and as Cam'ron portrays it in a movie, the root cause is a long-standing belief that law enforcement is the enemy.
>
>Kennedy says thats partly because of police tactics used to fight the war on drugs.
>
>Asked if he trusts the police, [14-year old] Alex tells Cooper, "No."
>
>Why not? "'Cause there's been numerous times I've been walking, just being a regular American citizen and getting stopped for no reason," Alex says.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/19/60minutes/main2704565_page3.shtml

The drug war is doubly to blame. If your primary revenue source in the neighborhood is illegal, of course the police are the enemy. Given the victimless crime nature of drug sales, it's inevitable that invasive, strong arm tactics are necessary to enforce the law. Here we see a consequence of such abuse, that there is no respect for or trust in the police (and they don't really deserve any). I don't mean the individual police [wo]men of course, but that the system has created an incentive to collectively distrust the enterprise of policing.

Add it to the tally of the drug war: the number of people killed for other reasons (outside of drug territory defense) because there is no longer effective deterrence because the reputational cost of pursuing the drug war is ruining the utility of the police. Why is 1K/year American causalities in Iraq sufficient cause to withdraw/surrender, but somewhere around 8K/year causalities in the U.S. not sufficient reason to "surrender" the drug war?

I started reading the viewer comments on the 60 Minutes website. They were mostly moral indignation that people wouldn't come forward to testify. That's ridiculous. If my life were on the line, I wouldn't testify either. Lecturing people on "proper" morality is not the answer, better is to seek the underlying economic causes for which such behavior is the rational consequence.

====================================================
Ervan Darnell
ervan@kelvinist.com http://www.kelvinist.com

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