Code of Silence: Two Perspectives

Whether it's the Mafia or the Underground Railroad, codes of silence are vital to some organizations' continued livelihood. This post focuses on one aspect of the code of silence: no snitching. Are tight knit groups of individuals who trust one another in turn able to work more productively or is the code of silence just a clever ploy to get kingpins off the hook while their subordinates take the fall?

Take One: Manipulated Minions
Codes of silence are philosophically inconsistent. The implications of a code of silence are all about putting the group over the individual, but at the same time they limit the group so narrowly that they do not serve the greater good in any general sense.

If you believe in a way of conduct, you shouldn't have to conceal it--whenever people rely on secrecy, it's a warning they might be up to no good. Granted that the underground railroad might be an exception to this rule, but the underground railroad was underpinned by a broader position: that slavery was wrong. Criminal organizations however don't have that kind of broad message underneath: they're not trying to encourage everyone to become a criminal like the underground railroad was trying to encourage everyone to become an abolitionist.

For criminal organizations, the only underlying interest is personal gain--which is why a code of silence is inconsistent because its advocating the good of the group over protecting the self. The only way it can be explained is if you can narrowly tailor it to mean 'protection of this groups interests are more important than the individual but less important than everyone else's, but since the group in question's interest is self interest, it doesn't really add up as a cohesive position.

Codes of silence are only good for the kingpin, not the individual and certainly not society's. Kingpins promulgate the code because it favors them, and often artificially increase the incentives to cooperate by threatening to retaliate against people who break it. Silence is not a very philosophically sound system which is why it cant be sustained without killing people or otherwise redistributing the costs. From a game theory standpoint, its a preferable position to advocate if you RUN a criminal organization because it protects your self interest while masking itself as a broader principle.

Take Two: Real Life Prisoner's Dilemma
For anybody on earth not familiar with the prisoner's dilemma, here's a little recap:

Two suspects are arrested by the police. The police have insufficient evidence for a conviction, and, having separated both prisoners, visit each of them to offer the same deal. If one testifies (defects from the other) for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent (cooperates with the other), the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice receives the full 10-year sentence. If both remain silent, both prisoners are sentenced to only six months in jail for a minor charge. If each betrays the other, each receives a five-year sentence. Each prisoner must choose to betray the other or to remain silent. Each one is assured that the other would not know about the betrayal before the end of the investigation. How should the prisoners act?

OUTCOMES	Prisoner B Stays Silent	Prisoner B Betrays
Prisoner A Stays Silent	Each serves 6 months	Prisoner A: 10 years Prisoner B: goes free
Prisoner A Betrays	Prisoner A: goes free Prisoner B: 10 years	Each serves 3 years

What's remarkable about the prisoner's dilemma is the way it exploits our self interest. No matter what the other player does, one player will always gain a greater payoff by defecting. Since in any situation playing defect is more beneficial than cooperating, all rational players will play defect, all things being equal--even though we know the sentence would be only 1/10 as long if they cooperated.

A code of silence is one possible solution to the the prisoner's dilemma. Kingpins may be able to see the best outcome because they have no personal stake in the pot (experience helps too, a good way to induce cooperation is have people play the game over and over again).