Back on the subject of snitching …<\/p>\n
A friend of mine with, shall we say, interested and varied experiences in life (e.g. having seen the justice system from both sides), wrote this in response to my earlier posts on this subject:<\/p>\n
\nIf I could have seen [you know who] right before she got busted, I would say this:<\/p>\n
1. Cops lie. They lie and lie and lie. They care about nothing except busting people. If they say they care, they are lying. You are meat to them. Smelly meat. You are cluttering up their life, and they want to get rid of you. <\/p>\n
2. Say absolutely nothing. When they read you your Miranda rights, believe every word. Those words are likely the only thing that they say that is absolutely true. EVERYTHING you say will be used against you. EVERYTHING. <\/p>\n
3. making a ‘deal’ with the cops is your business. If you do so, do it with the advice of a competent attorney. But a ‘deal’ aka plea bargain is one thing, ratting people out, even people you don’t know, is something else again. Actions have consequences. All actions. The consequences may be physical, they may be karmic, but they will be there. What you send out, comes back. ALWAYS.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
That’s a start and a good one. But what else<\/i>?<\/p>\n
There’s a lot of information online about how to deal with cops when you’re pulled over in traffic or hassled on the street. The Flex Your Rights<\/a> videos alone are a treasure trove, as are the “Never talk to the police”<\/a> videos.<\/p>\n
But there’s not a lot that helps you conduct yourself if you’ve messed up and gotten busted. Sure, the advice never to talk still holds, but I wonder how many of us would have the presence of mind to follow it? How many of us would automatically fall back on the effort to talk ourselves out of the fix?<\/p>\n
And what about the rest of the experience of being yanked into custody, threatened, stuck in a stinking holding cell with heaven knows what company, pressured, dehumanized, and generally terrorized into “compliance”?<\/p>\n
I’ve never experienced any of that. Well, not since getting out of government school. <\/p>\n
Even if you know, intellectually, what you ought to do (or not do), keeping the confidence, understanding, and self-control to do it under such an emotional onslaught must be a real trick.<\/p>\n
I always thought every writer should be arrested at least once and serve at least one night in jail — but so far I’ve failed at that. And you know, I can’t say I really mind.<\/p>\n
But that means I also don’t really know<\/i>. So, voice-of-experience people. Or you lawyers out there. What advice would you give to some young person who’s coping with the whole horrendous overload of being busted?<\/p>\n
Not just advice on what this young person should do<\/i>, but advice on how to keep the integrity and presence of mind to do it<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Particularly (since this is for The Project), what would you say to someone who’s been busted and is being pressured into becoming a snitch? How would you help them stand against that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Back on the subject of snitching … A friend of mine with, shall we say, interested and varied experiences in life (e.g. having seen the justice system from both sides), wrote this in response to my earlier posts on this subject: If I could have seen [you know who] right before she got busted, I would say this: 1. Cops lie. They lie and lie and lie. They care about nothing except busting people. If they say they care, they are lying. You are meat to them. Smelly meat. You are cluttering up their life, and they want to get…<\/p>\n