No shame in snitching to guard communities

The world - thankfully - has always been filled with stand-up folks who do what's right, who protect the weak and ensure that justice is served.

And we're not talking about the police, though the definition fits. This is about the neighbors who return lost wallets, who break up fights, who watch the sidewalks, who call the cops when they see crime. These are everyday heroes who keep civilization from drowning in its depraved and perverse impulses.

Theirs is a constant battle and a wearying one.

Every day, the current culture's sinister forces attempt to transform such people into something else, essentially by trying to redefine right and wrong, by making immorality a virtue and virtue immoral.

In some places, on some blocks, standing up for what's good and decent earns the righteous an old and powerful name: Snitch. It's a moniker used as a cudgel by criminals to beat citizens into line, a form of abuse the abused are too scared to resist.

Don't talk, Snitch. Put down that phone, Snitch. Don't talk to the cops, Snitch. Go back in your house. And, slowly, house by house, petty intimidation by petty intimidation, the thugs win. They cow the people who would - if only they could - stand up and demand justice and peace.

"There is quite a bit of pressure placed on younger people to not report crimes," said Theo McClammy, Chesapeake's Neighborhood Services coordinator. "They have a belief that it's snitching. We want to send a message that it is all of our collective responsibility to be good stewards of our community."

Across history, we have believed that a crime against one person is a crime against all of us. That victims need protection. The bankrupt ethic argues instead that the lawbreaker needs protection. Criminals and their canons in charge of neighborhoods are bad enough. But thugs, drug dealers and murderers as role models are worse.

Pilot writer Kristin Davis highlighted Chesapeake's effort - beginning next year - to counter the ethos that identifies good citizens as the bad guys.

Any effort is welcome, of course, but the problem is deeper than the media, or the music, or the movies. It begins in the home. It begins when Mom and Dad model reasonable respect for the nation's laws and their enforcers, who do everything they can to instill in their children those same values.

The lesson is simple: If you see a crime committed and do nothing, you have failed your neighbors. If you help a criminal escape justice, you are no different.

We would never suggest blind allegiance to any institution. But if the choice is between a criminal and the law, the law wins every time. For the sake of safety and society, the law should and must.