USA Today reports that in a five-year period, almost 50,000 federal inmates received a sentence reduction for providing federal authorities with information about other crimes and criminals. Cooperating with law enforcement officials, or “snitching,” is not new, but a new twist in providing evidence has come to light. Inmates, often with the help of people outside of prison, are selling information about crimes, and the people who committed them, to other inmates who will in turn share that information with federal agents. Those buying the information do it not out of a sense of civic duty to help solve crimes, but to get a sentence reduction. And as USA reports, it often works.
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