Policies Of The Criminal Justice System

Prisons where essentially build to accommodate a number of prisoners but over the years it has reach over capacity. Today in the United States there are approximately 193,468 federal inmates that consisting of the Bureau of Prisons Custody, private managed facilities and other facilities. The inmates ages range from 18- 65 with the median age being in their late 30’s. This number is counting both male and female population with male being 93.3% of inmates and females being 6.7%. The number of inmates has steadily increase since 1980 with only having approximately less than 50,000 but today the number has gone more up. Drug offenses are the highest number for inmate’s imprisonment, the next highest offense would be weapons, explosives and arson; immigration and miscellaneous fall next in lines. The number for the other offenses such as robbery, extortion, fraud, bribery, burglary, larceny, property offenses and other offenses are lower. Overcrowding prison has become problematic as the prison population continue to increase leading to proper care and attention for prisoners.

The framework of Stop-and-Frisk started in 1968 in a case known as Terry v. Ohio. This was a landmark case that gave law enforcement the constitutional limitations by the United States Supreme Court to stop and search individuals in streets encounters for weapon or contraband (Rengifo & Slocum, 2016). In 1996, the Anthony General, Eliot Spitzer opened an investigation to assess the effectiveness of Stop-and-Frisk on the minority communities in New York City. The assessment involved looking at 175,000 UF-250 Forms from 1998 to 1999. During

The case of Terry v. Ohio took place in 1968. This case involved a Detective who had witnessed three suspicious males patrol a street and stare into a specific window multiple times. With reasonable suspicion and probable cause, Detective McFadden assumed one of them could be armed. He then took one of the males and patted him down to find that he had a pistol on him. He patted the victim down for reasons of protecting himself and others in the community. The Fourth Amendment does include, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Israel, LaFave). The people who are being frisked are for reasons that the officer wants to protect himself and others, not just for no reason. People do have a right to their personal, private property and the stop and frisk, or sometimes know as a terry stop, is approved if the officer has reasons to believe the person could be carrying a weapon or a threat to society. The officer had reasonable suspicion and probable cause to search the male and was able to legally with the Fourth Amendment. The stop and frisk action has been around for almost 50 years. Is it time to put a stop to it because people think it is unconstitutional, or to change the way we view

The stop and frisk policy came about many years ago. The stop and frisk is used for protection for the officer or officers. An officer can stop a suspect and frisk him/her for weapons, contraband or any other items if the officer feels any other suspicion. A Stop and Frisk do not require a warrant. This practice is very common now days, but similar procedures to stop and frisk policy started in the 1980s. According to Clark (2015), the earliest origins of stop and frisk were used in 1994 by Street Crime Unit to prevent the carrying of illegal guns in well-known hot spots and areas with high crime rates. The crime rates decreased over time, but it caused another issue in the communities.

The constitutional requirements of stop and frisk practices were bought up by the Supreme Court during the court case of Terry v. Ohio. Before this case, it was illegal for Police Officers to stop someone and frisk them unless they were being arrested or have a search warrant for that person. After various cases that tested the constitutional rights of Americans such as Sibron v. New York, Peters v. New York and Terry v. Ohio, the Supreme Court cane to the conclusion that police officers can frisk someone without having

The famous and controversial police practice known as the stop and frisk started on the last sixties. It was known national wide when the case Terry v. Ohio was presented this case was argued on December 12, 1967 it all started when Cleveland detective McFadden was on patrol on a foot post where he noticed the petitioner John W. Terry and another men known as Chilton were acting suspiciously on a street corner the detective noticed both men looking into a store multiple times with an interest to do something, then another men known as Katz showed up to the scene all three men joined and where walking around the store, that's when detective McFadden approached and identified himself as a police officer he started to ask them simple

Imagine innocently walking down the street in a city you’ve lived in your whole life, when all of a sudden you hear the dreaded “woop woop” and see those flashing red and blue lights. The police. They interrogate you, ask your whereabouts, and finally, they “frisk” you. Of course, they find nothing; they rarely do when they search people. Although it’s wrong and demoralizing, you know it’s something you’ll have to get used to as an African American living in New York City.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the pros and cons of the Stop and Frisk policy in New York. This paper covers a short history of Stop and Frisk. It also will address the progression of the policy throughout the years. Furthermore, it will relate the topic to the management, gender, and race class focusing in on how the unconscious bias plays a role in how the police choose who to stop. The paper also includes some statistics of Stop and Frisk encounters. It will conclude with the group opinion of the Stop and Frisk policy.

Stop and Frisk started in New York City in the early 1990’s as a combined response to the “Broken Windows” sociological theory and the ruling in the Terry v. Ohio case. The initial prompt for this policy came from the ruling in the 1968 Supreme Court case of Terry v. Ohio. The court decided that fourth amendment rights are not violated when the police stop, detain, and search a suspect on the street. This ruling paved the way for early implementation of policies similar, but not as wide-spread, as stop and frisk. This ruling paved the way for early implementation of policies similar, but not as wide-spread, as stop and frisk. This theory alleges that by reducing petty crime you can also deter more major crime much in the same way as fixing broken windows (which are thought to invite potential thieves) will prevent future crime. Kelling’s theory combined with the Terry v. Ohio ruling eventually led to the implementation of full blown Stop and Frisk in the New York City area during the mayoral term of Rudi Giuliani. The idea behind stop and frisk initially was for police officers to patrol streets in order to stop those they suspected of carrying illegal goods and then frisk them to ascertain if they were indeed breaking any laws. This would serve duel purposes in that those found to be carrying illegal goods would be stopped while letting others in the area who may be participating in illegal activities know that there was an active police presence there, hopefully deterring

At the core of the stop and frisk policy as utilized by the New York Police Department is racial profiling. Racial profiling has a significant and often controversial place in the history of policing in the United States. Racial profiling can be loosely defined as the use of race as a key determinant in law enforcement decisions to stop, interrogate, and/or detain citizens (Weitzer & Tuch, 2002). Laws in the United States have helped to procure and ensure race based decisions in law enforcement. Historically, the Supreme Court has handed down decisions which increase the scope of discretion of a law enforcement officer. For example, traffic stops can be used to look for evidence even though the officer has not observed

According to the Center for Constitutional Rights report, stop and frisk is “the practice by which a police officer initiates a stop of an individual…allegedly based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity” (2012). This practice dates back to the Terry vs. Ohio case in 1968 where the police “are authorized to stop a person…without a warrant” if the law enforcement officials have a reasonable suspicion that an individual is about to commit a crime (“Terry vs. Ohio,” 1968). Mcfadden, a detective, was patrolling his downtown beat when he discovered Terry as well as his two male accomplices roaming the same area more than 24 times, while stopping to look in the same store window. Their actions stimulated suspicion and Mcfadden approached the men and identified himself as a policeman. Mcfadden frisked Terry and found a revolver in his overcoat pocket and was then charged with carrying a concealed weapon (“Terry vs. Ohio,” 1968). The Supreme Court’s decision though, rejected the argument that the stop and frisk of Terry did not trigger the Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures. The Court

The history of stop and frisk began in 1968 and ended in 2013. Stop and frisk began with the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and New York v. Peters. The Supreme Court’s decision was made on legal grounds to stop with reasonable suspicion, question, and if necessary, frisk for weapons.

The police procedure stop and frisk is a highly controversial topic in society. In order for the officer to initiate the procedure, he or she needs reasonable suspicion or probable cause that meet minimal legal requirements. People that have been stop and frisked may wonder if the procedure is discriminatory towards race, since a majority of people stopped are minorities, or if the procedure is against ones constitutional rights that are protected by the amendments, or if the procedure is effective in reducing crime rates. Citizens may feel that being stopped and frisked by an officer is against the constitutional rights they have as people. The reason an officer initiates this procedure is to hopefully reduce crime rates in the long term. Officer’s need probable cause in order to initiate the procedure. The top five reasons for the stop and frisk practice to occur include “high crime areas, time of day fits the crime incident, fugitive movements by the suspect, casing victim or location, and proximity to the crime scene” (Avdija 27). Under those circumstances a person is more likely to be stopped by an officer. One may ask; What is the stop and frisk procedure? What are the minimum legal requirements needed to initiate a stop and frisk? Is the stop and frisk procedure discriminatory towards race? Is the stop and frisk procedure unconstitutional? Does the procedure actually reduce crime rates? Suspects involved in a stop and frisk procedure do have constitutional rights, but

The terms “stop-and-frisk” is used as one, then the reality is that its two separate acts. Stops are the first act with frisks being the second that requires the police officer to have two different legal justifications. When a police officer stops a subject that officer must have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is in the act to commit a crime. To frisk a person by a police officer that officer must have reasonable suspicion to believe that the person who is stopped poses a threat to the officer’s safety which may include a concealed weapon ("Report on the NYPD 's stop and frisk policy," 2013).

What is stop and frisk? Who uses stop and frisk? According to Haq stop and frisk is a “program that enables a police officer to stop, question, and frisk a person for weapons”(1). This means that a police officer can only search someone if they possess reasonable suspicion and follow their guidelines. People should have open ideas of ways of reducing gun violence and not closing before hearing the proposals. People say that stop and frisk promote racial profiling and that it invades one’s privacy rights. Police officer are human being and make mistakes because no one is perfect in this Earth. Gun violence has been a main subject now a day, where you hear it on the news about a school shooting. Stop and frisk are an effective way to bring down crime rates in one’s city yet some people may think otherwise and think it’s not acceptable. The practice of stop and frisk is necessary to protect the people and to be capable to reduce crime off the streets; without it crime rates like gun violence would increase drastically.