After seeing this story (”Witness troubles stymie police”–USAToday), I was reminded of an encouraging (to me, at least) local story from the other day. First, from USAToday:

Witnesses to killings and other violent crimes refuse to cooperate in law enforcement investigations with such regularity that their silence is driving down the rate of solved murders throughout the country, police officials say.

Which brings me a Nashville story from over the weekend. I’m curious to hear what people think about this local initiative called dosnitch.com. (here’s the Tennessean’s report) Apparently, it is a response to this type of thing.

For the record, I have never watched an episode of The Sopranos, but it does seem to me that there seems to be a sort of glamorization of the Mafia and “codes of honor” in the world of organized crime in recent years. I personally believe there’s no honor among thieves, but I think I may be in the minority.

But anyway, from the dosnitch website, its founders state,

Our purpose is to promote the empowerment of people seeking to live in a crime-free environment, by providing information on how to anonymously alert and aid law enforcement about past, present, and potential crimes.

It was always interesting to me when I was working in criminal law to observe defense lawyers (and even some prosecutors) deriding those who cooperated with, or provided information to, law enforcement.

Not to get off track, but I’ve had to process some of this same information in the area of teaching my children about “tattling.” There’s a reason that it’s wrong . . . I’m not sure the same thing can be said of “snitching.”