Stop And Search Epistemology

A police officer’s abuse of power comes from the amounts of stop and frisks towards people of color and the actions taken for the arrest. A police officer will use pre-textual stops to justify stopping a black person. If an officer deems a black person to be suspicious based on appearance, then that black person has committed a crime. John Clemons, writer of a journal article, “Blind injustice: The

“The police have a number of powers of stop and search. When using any power they must always have regards to the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) codes of practice.” The effectiveness of the police stop and search procedures being used as a valuable tool in the detection of crime can be measured by looking at the role that stop and searches play in policing and the arrests they lead to. However their impact on the community and the negative image it has given the police force outweigh the results generated from stop and searches. It has been found through various reports such as one by The Equality and Human Rights Commission, arrests for serious offenses are less likely to follow from stop and searches however they do play

Question, and Frisk” (SQF) policy that is used as a tool to help reduce crime but potentially racially bias in the minority community.

The organization I selected for my research paper is the Chicago Police Department, also known as CPD. This organization interests me because it directly affects me, not only as a member of the communities who seem to interact most with CPD, but also as someone who was born and raised in the city of Chicago. The Chicago Police Department’s mission is to serve and protect citizens of the city, yet this organization has been in the news for doing just the opposite. Recently, the CPD has been in the media for a number of unethical issues and their lack of diversity on the force. Thus I would like to explore how these areas affect the work of CPD and their relationship with various communities. With recent protests and the Black Lives Matter movement

The issue of stop and search is considered to be an extremely controversial area. There is significant debate on the legitimacy and the accountability of police powers when conducting stop and search, which has led to concerns about the effectiveness of policing. Reiner (2000: 80) has stated that policing is ‘beyond legitimation’ as a result of consistent complaints concerning the abuse of police powers within stop and search. The cause for concern is not only raised by the public, or other agencies, but is now recognised by senior British police officers (Ainsworth, 2002: 28). The cause of concern has been raised through complaints that police target ethnic minorities through stop and search and public opinion, that stop and search is a

The judicial system in America has always endured much skepticism as to whether or not there is racial profiling amongst arrests. The stop and frisk policy of the NYPD has caused much controversy and publicity since being applied because of the clear racial disparity in stops. Now the question remains; Are cops being racially biased when choosing whom to stop or are they just targeting “high crime” neighborhoods, thus choosing minorities by default? This paper will examine the history behind stop and frisk policies. Along with referenced facts about the Stop and Frisk Policy, this paper will include and discuss methods and findings of my own personal field research.

Profiling is something that every person has or will do at some point in their life; some may even profile without even realizing it. There are various forms of profiling which will be discussed, along with the history behind profiling and how it has been used successfully by Law Enforcement in several areas as a field on investigation (Douglass, Ressler &Burgess, 1986). Profiling has various positives along with negatives, and these are accepted by Satzewich and Shaffir (2009) who suggest that racial profiling is best understood in the context of a police subculture where these police officer intergrade profiling as part of their every day work routine. Profiling is a big factor in the daily work of every Law Enforcement Officer and it cannot be avoided (Becker, 2004). For the most part profiling is seen as part of an officers daily investigative tools, from border searches, to pulling vehicles over for traffic citations the officers will use his or her discretion on those who arouse their suspicion (Rose, 2002). Therefore, this paper will analyze the overall effectiveness of profiling and how it either proves to successfully reduce crime or not (Rose, 2002).

Following through the process of the criminal justice system, after being stopped by police officers, many individuals remain innocent of committing any crime and walk away from the situation without further questions asked. However, at this point, silence is not the answer. Alexander notes regarding the unreasonable searches, “Hardly anyone files a complaint, because the last thing most people want to do after experiencing a frightening and intrusive encounter with the police is show up at the police station where the officer works and attract more attention to themselves” (Alexander 69). Therefore, these countless searches remain unheard of by many because the innocent are too scared to come forward and tell their stories. Perhaps if the silence is broken, word of mouth would prevent others from being unlawfully searched and arrested based on no suspicion. This is not the case though; nevertheless, it is known that “the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) trains police to conduct utterly unreasonable and discriminatory stops and searches” (Alexander 70). The use of such searches and methods to determine whom

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

Some level of racial profiling has probably always existed in the United States. The article Mac Donald says that there is something that the vehicles are stopping it belongs to drivers and the kind of vehicles. and also about the number and type of occupants fit the profile of a drug courier. But of course they do once the traffics are stopped and they want to research the vehicle. These are just for race or ethnicity (par.7-8)., found on the Article racial profiling website, speaks to the audience of the united state by providing the idea of how someone from the different race can drive differently, that make the police to stop them. The purpose of this article is to give reasons why some races are being pulled over most of the time. Finally, the author says that if police control this indictment, police safety will suffer especially the safety of minorities in the area of violence and drugs in the neighborhoods. The neighborhoods are sometimes good to compliment from them for police to achieve them (par.11). The article “What is racial profiling?”, found on the wise Geek website, speaks to the audience of a general public of information searcher and educate by providing they say that people get research or suspected of being criminal because of their

Apart from periodically publishing stop and search records, supervisors and managers of police force are now required to closely monitor such statistics and take timely actions if something wrong is being observed. Also stricter rules on stop and search have since been imposed, along with the requirement of police officers writing a detailed report on spot about every single incident which subjects to review seems helpful in improving police conduct (Fyfe 1979; Skogan and Frydl 2004 in Miller 2010). While stop and search practice has been somehow improved, racial discrimination can still be seen in stop and search statistics. The notion of “Black and minority ethnic groups, particularly black people, have for many years been disproportionately at the receiving end of police stop and search—a fact associated with profound community resentment towards the police” (Bowling and Phillips 2002 in Miller 2010) still largely applies today. Miller’s (2010) analysis indicate that black people are about 6 times more likely to be stopped and searched, while it is about 2 times more likely for Asians. Similar idea is seen in Bennetto’s (2009) report, which draws on police statistics that shows in 2009 “black people are seven times more likely to be stopped and searched than white”, worse than Miller’s analysis with the most recent figures in 2008. No official explaination is provided by Police, but Bennetto (2009) assumes this may be caused by simply discrimination of

Ethnic differences in offending is another explanation to explain the disproportionality in stop and searches simply reflect ethnic differences in levels of offending. There is low discretion stops and high discretion stops. In low discretion stops the police act on relevant information about an offence e.g. description. In a high discretion stop police act without any intelligence. In these stops is where officers can use there stereotypes. Ethnic minorities are over represented in population groups who are most likely to be stopped such as the young, unemployed and urban dwellers. These groups are most likely to be stopped, regardless of their ethnicity.

Second, police officers are caught in a dilemma when making a traffic stop. Chances are that drivers stopped try to injure or even kill the officer. Yet, officers are expected to maintain friendliness at best or neutral at worst. Police officers lower their guard when they approach the driver in a friendly manner. If the officer adopts a continuous friendly approach, they may find themselves attacked by hostile citizens or worst, killed because of losing one's guard. Though, the friendly approach has its risks, the defensive approach has its consequences. When a police officer approaches the driver with a guarded attitude, the officer will most likely forget the goal of cooperating with the driver. Instead

Although confidentiality and consent is important during any research and interview; when conducting survey research, it is very important to make sure all information obtained is handled with the highest level of privacy unless given the proper consent to share information. Research surveys are targeted towards officers and the feelings they may have towards the position they’re in. This type of surveys gives us an in depth view of what it’s like to be a law enforcement professional such as that of a police officer.

In this essay I will talk about about search and cease. Also how it would be like if we did not have this used in daily life. This is simply for protection of the people working with the law. Also I will talk about the pros and cons about searches.