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Kids Getting Paid to Snitch



This really gets my goat. Seems that some schools (this article mentions ones in Georgia and NC) have begun organized “snitch for money” programs. Students in some places can earn up to $500 for tattling on their peers about firearms possession, or $100 other places for information on vandalism, firearms and drugs.

At some other schools:

[…] money from candy and soda sales will be used to pay $10 for valid information about campus thefts, $25 or $50 for tips on drugs, and $100 for leads on gun possession or other felonies.

A similar program at Cherryville High School in rural Gaston County, N.C., “has really worked well,” principal Stephen Huffstetler says. He implemented the program two years ago. “This year, we’ve given out $1,100,” he says. “For $100, they’ll turn their mothers in.”

He says the money was paid for tips on drug possession or sales, mainly marijuana and prescription pills. The rewards are funded partly by student-run programs, he says.

I’m also especially creeped out by this passage:

“It’s not a reaction to anything that’s happening on campus,” says Tim Hensley, spokesman for the Floyd County schools. “It’s a proactive attempt from the principal’s standpoint.”

Well shit, as long as it’s proactive, then it must be okay!

“There’s a balance here between creating a society of snitches and creating a sense of community responsibility,” says Russ Skiba, professor of educational psychology at Indiana University in Bloomington.

Mm, I’d say you definitely crossed that line and then took a shit on it. Community responsibility is not fostered by creating an environment where noone can trust each other. It certainly is good training for living in a police state though, I’ll say that much.







5 Reader Responses

  1. Irony Says:
    April 22nd, 2005 at 11:48 am

    Maybe this idea will take off, and soon we’ll have our own Hitler Youth. They could just combine the idea with the Boy Scouts, since they already have brown shirts! Think of the savings…

  2. J. Puma Says:
    April 22nd, 2005 at 12:15 pm

    if anyone out there would like some awesome dirt on tim, i’m taking bids . . . .

  3. John Says:
    April 22nd, 2005 at 2:30 pm

    Aw geez, that sounds familiar! As always, Orwell SEES ALL:

    All children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it. The songs, the processions, the banners, the hiking, the drilling with dummy rifles, the yelling of slogans, the worship of Big Brother — it was all a sort of glorious game to them. All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children. And with good reason, for hardly a week passed in which The Times did not carry a paragraph describing how some eavesdropping little sneak — ‘child hero’ was the phrase generally used — had overheard some compromising remark and denounced its parents to the Thought Police.

  4. human? Says:
    April 22nd, 2005 at 6:09 pm

    when i was in high school, i was heavy into writing graffiti. the youth squad in the local PD used to keep a close watch on the school….. every tag that got put up was photographed and kept in a huge files that i had the chance to catch a glimpse of when being questioned on some other shit. they also came to my house once & came inside while i was home alone & underage and were questioning me regarding some other graffiti around town. the youth detective squad knew me and my friends well, used to pull over all the time when they saw us on the street, ask us questions, basic harrasment, in a playfull psychotic way….always trying to get us to rat out each other, but it never worked…

    although, if they dangled some money, im sure they would have found a Judas amongst us…..

    fuck the police

    one
    human?

  5. rhondda Says:
    April 22nd, 2005 at 8:20 pm

    I remember once a long time ago that I was taught that one had to respect your elders. There was this kid from my school who was bad mouthing this elderly woman. I told on him and I was required to come into a classroom and point him out. It so freaked me that that was what was required if you try to do the thing that “they” tell you to do that I vowed I would never tell on someone again. I was in grade one. The betrayal of the adults to my innocent desire to please and do the right thing was a huge lesson. I do not know if that kid should have been outed or not, but it was the idea that not only did I have to tell, but that I also had to point him out in public , thereby making me a snitch with a reputation, that totally floored me. Talk about early lessons. I didn’t even get paid, which was probably a good thing for me or I would not have thought about it. I was part of a control system. Wow and now they are paying kids, so it is okay.



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