Snitching shaves time off of thousands of federal sentences

In the federal system, reported USA Today ("Federal prisoners use snitching for personal gain, " Dec. 14), "Snitching has become so commonplace that in the past five years at least 48,895 federal convicts — one of every eight — had their prison sentences reduced in exchange for helping government investigators, a USA TODAY examination of hundreds of thousands of court cases found. The deals can chop a decade or more off of their sentences." See an interactive map detailing the number of deals federal prosecutors cut with informants by federal district from 2006 to 2011. Here's a remarkable excerpt from the story:

Every year for the past decade, 11% or more of the people convicted of a federal crime got a shorter sentence because they provided "substantial assistance" to investigators, a USA TODAY examination of federal sentencing data shows. That figure almost certainly understates the extent to which defendants cooperate because some get breaks that aren't reflected in court records and others only pass on information that the government doesn't find useful.

In return, prisoners offer up names and addresses of drug dealers. They wear recording devices or let police listen to their phone calls. They introduce undercover agents to their contacts inside crime organizations.

That kind of help has become indispensable for law enforcement. The Drug Enforcement Administration told the Justice Department's inspector general in 2005 that it "could not effectively enforce the controlled-substances laws of the United States" without its confidential sources.

Cooperation is especially common when drugs are involved. Nationwide, at least a quarter of the people sent to federal prison in drug-trafficking cases over the past five years successfully traded information for a shorter sentence

See related Grits posts:

• Woman forced to become drug snitch in aftermath of petty drug stop
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• Dallas home invader snitches, walks free, then fingers competitors while starting new crew
• Dallas drug cop had informant sign blank payment forms
• Dallas fake drug informant shows how 'cooperation' benefits can promote crime
• Petty cash to informants: Routine technique or inducement to perjury?
• Florida passed compromised snitching reforms
• Hollywood film focuses on convictions based on Hearne informant 
• Hinojosa: Corroborate jailhouse informants
• El Paso flooded with drugs for five years while authorities watched