There has always been tension between maintaining a safe society and abiding by the constitutional rights of its citizens. However the New York City aggressive program of Stop and Frisk have been widely criticized and considered unconstitutional. However, Stop and Frisk, per se is not unconstitutional unless people are being stopped illegally. It 's a crime prevention tactic that allows police officers to stop a person based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and conduct a frisk based on reasonable suspicion that the person is armed and or dangerous. Some argue this policy was created to target minorities. Most of the people who have been stopped and frisked under the program have been African American or Hispanic. This concerns …show more content…
It give people the right 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. Moreover, the broken window theory is a theory behind Stop and Frisk. They both states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into most serious crime.
Stop and Frisk practice raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. According to William J. Bratton "On average from 2002 to 2013 the number of individuals stopped and Frisked without any convictions was 87.6%. However, out of that 87.6% around 23% were black, 24% were Hispanic. And during all this stops the police officers recorded using force; police officers failed to states a specific suspected crime. Therefore many people had claimed "what will happen if cops were trained to do their field inquiries with respect and stop targeting people based on their color and race". Police officers sometimes use their power to make changes and preventing crimes from happening, however they sometimes abuse of it and used it to target people and discriminate them. According to the NYPD 's own report "around nine out of ten stopped and frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent".
Stop and Frisk basically grant police officers the authority to stop,
In the 1990s, the growth of violent crime reached its all-time high. In reply to the number of high murder rates in 1990, the New York City Police Department realized that whatever they are doing to reduce violent was not working. The local news reported that New Yorkers were afraid to wear their jewelry in public. Some New Yorkers reported that they sprint to the subway exit to avoid victimization when the door opened. The New York City Police Department decided to implement a practice of Stop, Question, and Frisk. This law became to know as the Stop -and- Frisk (Bellin, 2014). Stop-and Frisk” was a method that was implemented by the New York City Police Department in which an officer stops a pedestrian and asked them a question, and then frisks them for any weapon or contraband (Rengifo & Slocum, 2016). By the last 1990, Stop-and Frisk became a common practice implemented by New York City Police Department (Bellin, 2014).
The stop and frisk procedure is known to be more used toward those of the African American, Latino and minority races rather than those of the Caucasian race. A person is protected from unreasonable search and seizures under the Fourth Amendment. Many contested
As crime rates rise, police must come up with new methods to counteract these increases. Many of these methods come with pros and cons that may affect the way the public views Police officers and law enforcement in general. Some of these methods may seem like a violation to people’s rights, even though they may be constitutional. One of these methods known as Stop and Frisk is one of the most widely debated topics in America when it comes to dealing with Police actions and Constitutional rights.
Every day people walk down the street of New York wondering if they are going to be stopped. Paul Butler a law professor at Georgetown University and a former United States Department of Justice prosecutor says that “the problem with stop and frisk is not only that it makes the citizens of New York less free, it also makes them less safe” (Butler, 2012). This brings the feeling of the people in New York to light, as they feel like they are less than others and less free with the ability to them being stopped and searched whenever an officer has a suspicion. Not all officers have the right sense in mind when it comes to their suspicion about someone, because “according to the analysis, just 1.5% of all stop-and-frisk arrests resulted in a jail or prison sentence. Just one in 50 stop-and-frisk arrests, 0.1%, led to a conviction for a violent crime or possession of a weapon. Close to half of all stop-and-frisk arrests did not result in a conviction” (Lee, 2013). The percentages show that officers’ suspicions aren’t always correct and that they may use their own stereotype about someone when they stop and frisk. This policy is ineffective because they don’t have a 100 percent on catching people, and many times officers’ own opinions on someone gets in the way. This policy is kept around for the little percentage it has worked and to give the officers an option to do a stop and frisk if they feel necessary. If this policy
The New York Police Department's stop and frisk has been around for several years and people recently have been taking action about it but this is a very important and useful practice that officer conduct on a daily base, police officer are doing the right thing especially if neighborhoods are known for criminal or violent activities then these people should be stopped, questioned and frisked, from January to June of 2013 the NYPD's report shows that African American and Hispanics are more active to commit crimes like robbery, rape, murder and manslaughter, felonious assault, grand larceny, misdemeanor sex crime, misdemeanor assault, petit larceny, criminal mischief, shootings, procession of drugs, firearms, and other illegal substance overall blacks and latinos being targeted not only because what they are wearing or how they but also cause of what the numbers show us. The new soon to be Major of New York Bill de Blasio has said that he is against the stop and frisk but many officers say that taking away the stop and frisk will increase crime tremendously, people are going to start to walk around with weapons, the whole point about the stop and frisk and why police officers conduct it many times is because they want the public to see that anyone can be patted down meaning that if they carry weapons with them then they will get arrested. Bill de Blasio has also said
The NYPD’s stop and frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Departments own reports on its stop and frisk activity confirm what many people in
There has always been tension raised between maintaining a safe society and observing by the constitutional rights of its citizens. The New York City aggressive program of Stop and Frisk have been widely criticized and considered unconstitutional. However, Stop and Frisk, per se is not unconstitutional unless people are being stopped illegally. It 's a crime prevention tool that allows police officers to stop a person based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and to conduct a frisk based on reasonable suspicion that the person is armed. Some argue this policy was created to target minorities. Most of the people who have been stopped and frisked under this program have been African American or Hispanic. This concerns citizens and makes them oppose the policy because they believe its racial profiling and guided by color. Stop and frisk is now one of the biggest controversies in United States. It has become something that is affecting society in both a positive and negative way.
Eighty-seven percent of stops in 2012, were Black and Hispanic people. Compare that percentage to the amount of water on Earth, only seventy percent. Now, imagine eighty-seven percent water covering the Earth. That would make the world unbalanced and difficult to live in, which is how life is for the minorities impacted by Stop and Frisk. One of the most debated and controversial topics in New York City is the Stop and Frisk policy, and the impact it has on police, Latinos, and African Americans. Stop and Frisk fails to promote justice and equitable society because it creates a society where one group is lesser than another. The Stop and Frisk policy was created in Ohio, 1968, because of the a Supreme Court case, Terry v. Ohio (US Courts).
The statistics show that to be an African American or Hispanic in New York you are more than twice as likely to get stopped as a white or Asian person. Studies of reports show that 15,000 or 30% of stops are deemed unconstitutional; and those are just the ones that are reported, imagine all of those that go unreported. Imagine all of those people who were victimized just because of the color of their skin. The stop-and-frisk procedure was once a good thing that helped clean up the streets, but now it’s becoming an epidemic of racial profiling, and teaching racism and intolerance to anyone who is a victim or witness of these stops.
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.
The stop, question, and frisk policy was implemented in the NYPD in an effort to make the city a safer place. With weapons becoming more easily accessible than ever, they are becoming more of a problem, and officers and the general public are now in more danger than ever of being killed by a firearm, knife, or a weapon. Although the policy is intended to prevent harm and protect society, it has been under major scrutiny in not only the past few years, but also the past few decades as well. Due to the fact that minorities are believed to be the main target of this policing tactic, many people have argued it is inherently corrupt should be abolished. On the other hand, it has shown to provide some positive outcomes and as a result, it is a necessary
The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights. The Department’s own reports on its stop and frisk activity confirm what many people in communities of color across the city have long known: The police are stopping hundreds of thousands of law abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino. In 2011, New Yorkers were stopped by the police 685,724 times. 605,328 were totally innocent (88 percent). 350,743 were black (53 percent). 223,740
Racial profiling is an example of police brutality, which is defined by Gross and Livingston (2002) as “the practice of some officers of stopping motorists of certain racial or ethnic groups because the officer believe that these groups are more likely than others to commit certain types of crimes” (p.1413). Therefore, individuals are treated unfairly by law enforcement solely based on their race. This type of mistreatment is unmerited and ultimately a violation of an individual’s rights. However, in many instances the courts do not find it a violation of their civil rights based on the fact that racial profiling is difficult to prove. Often, prosecutors are disinclined in bringing forth a case against officers on this particular matter. Officers are permitted to stop and search individuals and their vehicles whenever there is reasonable suspicion, however, there has been studies that prove that some law enforcement officers restrict these rights primarily to minority groups. Bowling and Phillips found that although there was no formal monitoring of use of these powers, it was concluded that it was particularly heavy use of these powers against ethnic minorities, largely of young black people (as cited in Sharp & Atherton, 2007, p. 747) . In several cases, officers argue that they reasonably pulled an individual over for other probable grounds such as: traffic violations, suspicious behavior, etc., with race never being an
The policy of New York Police Department‘s (NYPD) stop question and frisk for some time been a highly controversial situation of policing under Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Commissioner Raymond Kelly administration. This administration praised the stop and frisk policy as a valuable resource to the City‘s successful mitigation in reducing violent crime. A resource to removing guns from the streets as well improving the quality of life for the communities that are most affected by those
“One. The police stop blacks and Latinos at rates that are much higher than whites. In New York City, where people of color make up about half of the population, 80% of the NYPD stops were of blacks and Latinos. When whites were stopped, only 8% were frisked (Quigley, 2010).” Police stops are a very common effect on society. It isn’t fair that police don’t hold everyone accountable the same way. Not every cop is that way but there are that selected few who still have that racist mindset and hold it against innocent people. It’s no secret that in New York especially, there is a lot of crime and gang activity produced by different minority groups in the city. However, The facts does not provide a good reason that in routine stops are people of color targeted and frisked down compared to