Marquette Law Review Volume 97 Article 4 Issue 2 Winter 2013 A Snitch in Time: An Historical Sketch of Black Informing During Slavery Andrea L. Dennis University of Georgia School of Law,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Law and Society Commons Repository Citation Andrea L. Dennis, A Snitch in Time: An Historical Sketch of Black Informing During Slavery, 97 Marq. L. Rev. 279 (2013). Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol97/iss2/4 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Law Review by an authorized administrator of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. 34609-mqt_97-2 Sheet No. 37 Side A 03/17/2014 11:30:34 DENNIS-10 (DO NOT DELETE) 3/10/2014 12:31 PM A SNITCH IN TIME: AN HISTORICAL SKETCH OF BLACK INFORMING DURING SLAVERY ANDREA L. DENNIS Although potentially offering the benefits of crime control and sentence reduction, some Blacks are convinced that cooperation with criminal investigations and prosecutions should be avoided. One factor contributing to this perspective is America’s reliance on Black informants to police and socially control Blacks during slavery, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Wars on Drugs, Crime, and Gangs. Notwithstanding this historical justification for non-cooperation, only a few informant law and policy scholars have examined closely the Black community’s relationship with informing. Furthermore, even among this small group, noticeably absent are historical explorations of Black America’s experience with informing during slavery.