Seeded from allhiphop.com by Step Above Most on 12/18/07
Investigative journalist Ethan Brown recently followed up his critically acclaimed Queens Reigns Supreme with the true crime book titled Snitch: Informants, Cooperators, and the Corruption of Justice. Brown’s new book provides insight into the secret history of the Stop Snitching movement and documents a troubling by-product of the War on Drugs, “a cottage industry of cooperators” who pervert the US legal system.
Snitch describes an ailing US criminal justice system that coddles defendants who play “The 5K game” in order to gain reduced sentences for themselves. Brown’s extensive research traces the subject back to the 1980’s with the evolution of huge mandatory sentences for miniscule amounts of street drugs. The sentencing guidelines did, however, provide an out for those accused, Section 5K 1.1, which states that if defendants gave “substantial assistance” to prosecutors they could receive a “downward departure” from the sentencing mandates. Subsequently, Brown states that everybody in court started snitching, even if they had to lie.
This new book is a provocative collection of comprehensively researched case studies annotated with compelling appendices containing court documents related to high profile cases such as the shooting of Tupac Shakur and the trial of Irv Gotti. A true crime revelation, Brown connects the dots between deadly shootings and court room skullduggery revealing a picture of an American justice system at odds with itself. Ethan Brown’s Snitch is published by PublicAffairs and is presently available from finer booksellers. Brown discusses his new book and a recent Supreme Court ruling which has enormous implications for tens of thousands of Americans currently behind the wall.
Read the entire article, HERE.
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