" a ring of jailhouse informants-- or 'snitches'--... allegedly received lenient sentences as well as food, drugs, sex and special privileges from detectives... It's not difficult to imahine why a prisoner-informant would lie about overhearing a confession when it means real material benefits... [and] prosecutors are often motivated to make those informants sound believable to a judge. Testimony from a single jailhouse informant is enough to convict a person for a charge as serious as murder... [Snitch] testimony [is] the leading cause of wrongful convictions in US capital cases."
-- Aaron Miguel Cantu "

― Maya Schenwar , Who Do You Serve, Who Do You Protect? Police Violence and Resistance in the United States