Marc Fisher, commenting on PG County CO's refusal to talk about a case in which a suspect was murdered:
...why should bad guys and ordinary citizens pay heed when police and prosecutors lecture them about how it's their civic duty to come forward with information about crimes? If law enforcement officers won't think of themselves as righteous whistle-blowers rather than as rats or snitches, how can a system that depends on witness testimony possibly function?
I've always loved watching cops, politicians, and moral arbiters invoke the "Stop Snitching" phenomenon as some sort of newly minted explanation for violent crime in the black community. Heavy on nostalgia, advocates of the "Stop Snitching" explanation proffer a mythical, fantastical ghetto where in the halcyon days of yore, it was easy to get witnesses to squeal on the thugs who lived next door. But now we live in the fallen era of black pathology, where criminals tend to act like, you know, criminals and threaten people whose words might send them to jail. When its black people refusing to testify against their neighbors, it's evidence of cultural collapse. But when its cops or correctional officers--people sworn to uphold justice--refusing to rat on each other in a murder case, well it's just following union advice.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
The black pathology biz strikes again.
The late great Steve Gilliard used to post pictures of Dick Cheney in a "Stop Snitchin" t-shirt during the Valerie Plame investigation.
A lot of my Russian friends are shocked and horrified to hear that American citizens would *ever* inform on their neighbors to the police. Of course, there's a long tradition, going back to tsarist times, of getting yourself in good with the authorities by telling them about something your friend Vasya said the other day... and it's the very strong cultural memory of the death and torture that resulted from these acts of informing that make Russians so shocked at Americans' willingness to tattle to the cops.
Karl Rove + Scooter Libby + Ollie North + Alberto Gonzales = Stop Snitching
Not to mention the police guaranteed my cousin they would protect him as a witness to a murder case and he and his girlfriend were murdered in the streets.
Not to mention the fact that police sometimes disregard valuable evidence when it conflicts with their view of how a crime was committed.
I have nothing but contempt for cops and law enforcement agents who decry "stop snitching" as if it's our fault that they can't do their jobs.
Do your job better. Then you wouldn't have to worry about this phenomenon.
Of course, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-interrogate2-2008jul02,0,3759815.story?page=1
People might be more willing to talk to the police if they thought there was a chance the cops actually gave a damn or could be trusted. Evidence is pretty overwhelming they don't and can't.
To paraphrase a recently deceased great thinker, high crime rates and irresponsibility among Police are a fact of life which must be faced.
You mean to tell me that "Stop Snitchin'" wasn't invented by Cam'ron?