I recently posted this entry on the Washington Post Political Bookworm blog. From the blog's introduction:

Criminal informants are a powerful weapon in law enforcement. Snitches typically provide incriminating information about someone in exchange for lighter treatment for themselves. But there is a dark side to the popular practice. In "Snitching: Criminal Informants and the Erosion of American Justice," published by New York University Press, Alexandra Natapoff explores the hidden, unregulated tradeoffs that officials increasingly accept. Natapoff, a professor of law at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, isn't seeking a ban on plea bargaining but she wants to raise public awareness of the practice's disturbing results and encourage improvements.

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Here's a link to a video interview I did with Zocalo. Zocalo is a wonderful cultural and civic organization that presents speakers, videos, conferences, and other forms of discussion around key public issues. From their website:

Zocalo takes on compelling ideas from a wide range of fields-politics, governance, health, economics, technology, foreign policy, arts, science and beyond. Believing that over-specialization and narrowcasting undermine the public square, Zocalo seeks to restore broad-mindedness to civic and intellectual life and to welcome a new, young and diverse generation to the conversation. Since 2003, Zocalo has roamed around Los Angeles, to Chicago, New Orleans, San Francisco and as far as Shanghai, Berlin and Guadalajara. We have featured over 800 thinkers and doers online and on the ground, using our live events to build community and feed the open, accessible, non-partisan spirit of our magazine.

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I'll be giving an author talk at the Enoch Pratt Central Library in Baltimore this Sunday, Feb. 21, at 2:00 p.m.; I'll also be signing books at the Barnes & Noble at the Inner Habor on Saturday, Feb. 20, from 3:00-5:00 p.m.

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Here is the clip of my book talk given at Georgetown Law School, Washington, DC, on November 16, 2009.

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Snitching is featured this week over on the Page 99 Test . The blog is driven by the writer Ford Madox Ford's adage: "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." Page 99 of Snitching reads as follows:

Today's informant culture goes beyond the inquiry in any specific case about whether it might be dangerous to reveal the name of an informant or whether a particular investigation might be compromised by such revelations. Rather, the system is moving towards wholesale policies of keeping cases, dockets, and practices secret. Today, the potential threat to some witnesses is now seen by courts as a reason to overcome the presumption of openness for all criminal records.

In these ways, the practice of using informants undermines public transparency throughout the criminal system. By resolving liability in secret, it insulates investigative and prosecutorial techniques from judicial and legislative scrutiny. This reduced public access affects numerous other constituencies as well, making it more difficult for the press, crime victims, families, and policy analysts to obtain information about the workings of the justice system or about specific criminal cases. Informant use has thus become a powerful and destructive informational policy in its own right, reducing public transparency and obscuring the real impact of criminal practices on individuals, communities, and other institutions.

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Snitching is featured this week over on the Page 99 Test . The blog is driven by the writer Ford Madox Ford's adage: "Open the book to page ninety-nine and read, and the quality of the whole will be revealed to you." Page 99 of Snitching reads as follows:

Today's informant culture goes beyond the inquiry in any specific case about whether it might be dangerous to reveal the name of an informant or whether a particular investigation might be compromised by such revelations. Rather, the system is moving towards wholesale policies of keeping cases, dockets, and practices secret. Today, the potential threat to some witnesses is now seen by courts as a reason to overcome the presumption of openness for all criminal records.

In these ways, the practice of using informants undermines public transparency throughout the criminal system. By resolving liability in secret, it insulates investigative and prosecutorial techniques from judicial and legislative scrutiny. This reduced public access affects numerous other constituencies as well, making it more difficult for the press, crime victims, families, and policy analysts to obtain information about the workings of the justice system or about specific criminal cases. Informant use has thus become a powerful and destructive informational policy in its own right, reducing public transparency and obscuring the real impact of criminal practices on individuals, communities, and other institutions.

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On Thursday, January 21, I'll be on the KPFA Morning Show at 8:00 a.m. (you can listen here) and Forum on KQED at 10:00 a.m. (here). On Friday, I'm speaking at the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice at Boalt Hall.

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