Hi everyone. I'm a new user here and I like to ask something about snitching. Sorry my of grammar and other stuff, English isn't my first language.If you see a grammar mistake, you're welcomed to point out it

I'm from northern Europe, precise from Finland. Here we have lack of OC, which is a good thing, I think. We have Hells Angels, Bandidos and some Russian or Estonian oc members but not so much.

If normal person sees a crime, it is normal to call police and tell what you have seen etc. I think it is fine, because the witness is a civil. When criminal is telling what his crime partner did, that's snitching.

Is this mentality normal in US or UK? Probably not in the corners of Baltimore, Chicago and so one.

My personal opinion is this, if you are a civil and you saw a crime, it is ok to call to police and testify. You are a member of civilized society, not a criminal. I believe many citizen in Scandinavia thinks like I think. Well, not residents of Stockholm, Malmö and Gothernburg ghetto's.

I hope we would have a nice chat about this subject.

If you call the police for any fucking reason (civilian or not), you're a fucking rat. You understand? Don't come in here with this rat shit.

Welcome, Maatsetungi. Hope to see many thoughtful posts from you.

To give you a courteous answer (unlike the answer above):

Police in America encourage civilians to report crimes and criminals because those reports help them to get bad guys off the streets. For example: Last weekend, 66 people were shot in Chicago, and the Chief of Police went on TV asking people who witnessed the shootings to come forward.

The Mafia and other organized crime gangs are supposed to have a "code of honor" that outlaws snitching and threatens death to snitches. Yeah, sure. The reality is that today, almost anyone in organized crime who's charged by police with a major felony will rat out his fellow gang members if it means he will get a reduced sentence. If you are a "civilian" and you snitch on an organized crime member, you could be in very big trouble because the OC guy may try to kill you to prevent you from testifying against him.

citizens, if someone robs your mothers house, and you have no recourse, you are a square who lives out in rural iowa, i wouldnt call you a rat because it affected you and you have no means to fight it...if you a driving up the highway, and a guy speeds by, and you know hes going faster than 70, and you call the cops..your a snitch with nothing better to do..or if the guy is texting or something, and you just call the police for the hell of it..dont laugh, a lot of people do it...if you are a civilian, and you do something stupid with the criminal element, and law enforcement is on you to help them, well yes your in trouble with oc, and you fucked up because you put yourself in the know..

The secret to organized crime is that if you don't snitch, you won't get rich. All gangsters with real money work with the cops.

Civilians don't live by the code of the streets and it is ignorant to expect them to. The code is for those in the criminal world.

To be honest the whole taboo about ratting is bs. These guys rat all the time it doesnt matter if its to cops or higher ups in the organization. Also to answer your question if you see a crime then the noble thing to do is report it

They can work with cops by bribes, snitching is another matter.

If you or someone else sees a crime, of course you report. it.


If you or someone else sees a crime, of course you report it. An O.C. member most likely would not, depending on the O.C. group they are in, and what crime they see. Any citizen should call the police.

I've seen cops on some of these Gangland type programs say things like "snitches get stitches". That's weird.

The thing is, there is really no point in cooperating unless you're doing it at a substantial level, especially nowadays. The feds will not stick their neck out for you unless you give them actual, useable, actionable information. And with the majority Mafia busts, we can see that it only takes one or two rats to take down 10, 20, or 30 guys.

But often they won´t out of fear or other reasons in particular if they belong to the same communities.

Spoken like a real man's man capeesh

If you are a civilian there is no omertà and the stop snitching movement is a joke.

People will say they live by that until someone they care about is hurt or killed.... then to top things off it’s the cops fault!

Meanwhile it’s amazing to me how in urban neighborhoods someone can get shot and everyone didn’t see or hear anything.....

Then a week later at the exact same time if a cop is put in a difficult situation there ends up being 35 ppl video taping it.

How does that happen???? It’s a joke....

But in my opinion ..... try to mind your own business if you see something petty..... a drug deal, drug user, someone speeding, someone stealing .... petty crap.... it’s non of my business.

If I saw someone innocent get hurt and I was asked about it and did see it I guess I would be a rat. I wouldn’t go out of my way to do it but....

If someone attacked or hurt my family if I couldn’t hit them on my property and have it be self defense.... I would again be a snitch.

But I try to mind my own business.

So if you came home and found a masked person physically or sexually assaulting your wife/mother/sister/child you would put out a platter of cookies and milk for them and wait for them to finish?

Your statement is so moronic, but, who knows, maybe you're in character?

There are countless stories of legitimate people getting mobbed up friends and neighbors to attack, or worse, kill, other people over beefs i.e. lover's quarrels, domestic disputes etc.

That not a form of snitching?

What about old neighborhood ladies alerting mobsters to the presence of undercover FBI in Italian neighborhoods back in the 70s and 80s.

Is this not a form of snitching or does snitching only count when you are trying to prevent an act of harm against someone else?

There are countless stories of mobsters ratting other mobsters out to superiors in order to undercut them, to steal their rackets, to get them killed, to demote them; means of which include making up stories of insubordination, selling out their drug dealing, or claiming that their holding back in their envelopes to their superiors.

How about that, is that not snitching?

Look at the deceit and betrayal endemic in late 70's and early 80's Philadelphia as wiseguys stepped over each other and continuously backstabbed each other in order to climb to the top and remove their enemies.

This entailed snitching. However, again, people clearly have different ideas when it comes to the definition of snitching.

I don't think mobsters should do it, but, then again, that only works well in theory. They are all thieves and liars by definition, and every time they plead out a case they are breaking the oath of "Omerta" and acknowledging the presence of their "secret organization".

Any right-minded person will alert the authorities if they are aware of a crime. There are ifs, buts, and maybes, but even when it comes to an older child bullying a smaller child, I don't care, I'm stepping in.

When mobsters rat out other ethnic criminals to the feds, often in the form of quid-pro-quo "you do something for me, I'll do something for you", is this not a form of snitching. I mean it often comes in the form of "protecting our own", "protecting our neighborhood", "doing our civic duty", "don't shit where you eat", but, really, often it just means they want a monopoly on drug dealing, extortion, booking etc. in this valuable real estate.

Luciano, Costello, Gambino, Lucchese all gave up info at some point to take down an adversary. Bonanno wrote a book ratting on everyone. This thing was founded on snitching. The guys at the bottom of the pecking order can live by their delusional code of silence all they want. The bosses talk. Always have.

this is simple..the rule is you rat on no person at any time for any reason, ever. even a terrorist.. bosses, made guys ect gave info and or dry snitched through out history. some did. i.e. persico knew scarpa was a rat ,.but was on his side

No way. You BS on a consistent basis. That is propaganda put out by the government, the same one you criticize all the time.

I think Persico was too stupid to see it, or took the word of others who told him it was not true. He is close to being the dumbest NYC boss, maybe the dumbest. He must be very tough, and has a strong commitment to his men and to the mob, but on the brain side he is no Einstein. He has spent over 40 years in prison all together, yet the media calls him a powerful man. No powerful men do that much time, or any time at all.

I'd respect OakasFan a lot more if he just said "In my opinion", but the fact that he posts his weird, outlandish, nonsensical conspiracy theories as if they're fact is what gets me.

It would be almost stranger to think that the guys he mentioned could attain all that power without cooperation of some kind in order to sustain it. Guys like Luciano and Gambino have gained an almost mythical aura in the eyes of crime aficionados. Their truths are probably less glamorous.

It was a different time in terms of law enforcement. Anybody who knows anything about organized crime knows that it was incredibly hard to convict mob bosses until RICO, provided they weren't directly, hands-on involved in crimes like Vito Genovese was.

I know the mafia was given carte blanche to become powerful because of poor leadership from the FBI. I've mentioned that recently. I still maintain people like Costello had to offer stuff to become that rich and powerful. Hell, we already know Luciano and Bonanno had no compunctions about snitching - if we're holding them to the same standard as the snitches Ralphie alludes to.

People go on about Castellano being afraid of jail. I bet Gambino was, too. Galante had his number.

Joe Bonanno's "snitching," if you can call it that, didn't go far beyond a factually incorrect and self-embellishing book. In fact, the book got him in even MORE trouble with the federal government because he was called to testify, refused, and served 14(?) months in prison for it. Does that sound like a particularly 'cooperating' witness to you?

Also, OakasFan's argument has been that because mob bosses like Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese avoided prison throughout most of their career, they must have been cooperating witnesses. The figure that Oak put it at was "half of all mobsters" in the history of LCN.

But the big, striking issue there is how many mob bosses went to prison after the RICO law was fully used in the 1980s. The answer is: pretty much all of them.
What does this mean? If you follow Oak's philosophy, then that means that post-1980, mob bosses all suddenly stopped cooperating with law enforcement as mob bosses had done before. If Oak's philosophy is to be believed, than the RICO law coming into effect was just a coincidence.

Just about every single mob boss post-1980 was busted and given long sentences, with the majority dying in prison, whereas mob bosses prior to 1980 stayed out of prison because, according to Oak, they were informers. Which still leaves some burning questions unanswered:

Why did all mob bosses post-1980 suddenly decide to stop cooperating with law enforcement whilst they were on the street?
Building on this, why did all mob bosses post-1980 suddenly decide to stop cooperating with law enforcement whilst they were on the street JUST AS the RICO law came into use and the FBI announced a major initiative to destroy the Five Families? That seems like pretty poor timing, wouldn't you say?

If you use your head, you'll open yourself to the possibility that perhaps most mob bosses (that stayed on the street) prior to 1980 weren't informers, but maybe the federal policy and laws were ill-equipped to combat the Mafia. Maybe the fact that Carlo Gambino and Tommy Lucchese and Joe Bonanno were able to stay on the street for so long is because the lack of the RICO law meant it was close to impossible to convict mob bosses with the street-level crimes such as murder and loansharking that they were able to be convicted of in the future.

Yes, it was very self-serving and embellished. But, Bonanno provided readers with the only extant description of the Commission's workings. One of the readers was Rudy Giuliani, who was then the US Attorney for the Southern District of NY. Giuliani saw in Bonnano's description of the Commission an example of a "Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization" under the RICO Act. Result: The Commission Case.

Is there any factual evidence to back the theory of Luciano and whoever else involved setting up Vito Genovese on the narcotics charge in 1959?

Was Genovese involved and they dropped a dime on him or was he not involved and they set him up to take the fall?

It's hard to imagine he wasn't involved in narcotics but the whole idea of the boss Genovese meeting with Nelson Cantoloups or whatever is name was who was an unmade low level street guy seemed far fetched too.

That was some serious snitching to have bosses snitch/set up another boss.

Along with what they just said, I maintain Costello couldn't have maintained such an air of legitimacy and stayed out of prison without some form of snitching on competitors. Ditto Gambino.

And it's been a slippery slope ever since, with plea deals and any notion of the mafia being a secret society thrown out the window.

But I respect your views and the way you get them across Nicky from Tampa, even if you are somewhat condescending in how you get them across sometimes.

Think about it this way: in those days, cops didn't corrupt wiseguys, wiseguys corrupted cops. That changed when the feds got involved.



That's fair enough, I respect that.

Luciano reached the height of his power in 1936, and got 40 years on a frame up, so that sounds like the opposite of. snitch. Gambino sated low key till 1963, then was hounded by the FBI for years, they even released transcripts of him and his wife arguing. Yet they never caught hi son tapes, that is what kept him out of prison. They did arrest him several times once on a armed robbery he had nothing to do with, which is said to be the one time he got angry during an arrest. Not a rat. Case closed,