Would You Turn in a Family Member for These Crimes?

A huge survey just conducted by YouGov indicates that in spite of the severity of crime, there's still a small number of people who would never betray the trust of a friend or family member.

In fact, about three percent of those polled, said that even in the case of murder, they would never turn in that friend or family member.  We're talking murder here.  It's not stealing cable or making an unauthorized copy of a DVD (which is not a victimless crime), but real life taking, murder.

I'm thinking that most people get caught up in an unjustified sense of betrayal for being the one to squeal, but if an appeal to this person doesn't cause them to do the right thing and own up to their crime, are they really worthy of loyalty?

The survey was actually done in Britain, but I'm thinking that American results wouldn't be too far from the same.

Here are the percentages of those who would report a friend or family member for various crimes.  Pretty shocking when you consider the flip side of each.

1. Murder - 87%

2. Dealing hard drugs - 74%

3. Animal cruelty - 71%.

4. Assault - 68%.

5. Drunk driving - 53%.

6. Scamming the government out of benefits - 45%.

7. Tax evasion - 35%.

8. Shoplifting - 33%

Like I mentioned above.  Consider the flip side of some of these percentages.  This means that over half of those polled wouldn't report someone scamming the government out of benefits and that nearly two thirds wouldn't report shoplifting by a friend or family member.

In the case of shoplifting, I'm assuming most of us would take it up with that friend or family member first and ask them to put the item back.  But, if they refused, would you take it to authorities?

Bristol and I will have that question in the morning and I'm really interested to see where we stand here in our neck of the woods.  Hope you'll call and let us know your position between 6 and 10 tomorrow morning!