The Stop And Frisk Laws

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.

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.

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 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.

New York’s Stop and Frisk laws started in 2004, heightening racial profiling in the criminal justice system. Law enforcement supports these discriminatory acts by stating the population will benefit from New York’s Stop and Frisk, because the government will stop the crimes before they are committed. These stops are still denoted unconstitutional by the people. The government supports stop and frisk built on the fact that the new law stops crime however, it does not. Today, people are afraid of strolling along in their city due to the potential of unlawfully being searched based on the opinion of an officer assuming they look “suspicious”. Therefore, by comparing data presented by the NYPD with the notion of utter discrimination and

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, 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

This group has countless stereotypes of violence and racial inequalities thrown at them, making them a huge target for surveillance not just by peers, but by the government as well. The most notable types of surveillance towards African Americans come from the police, who frequently target them seemingly based on their ethnicity. In the article “Is Stop-and-Frisk Worth It?” written by Daniel Bergner, the author elaborates on the notorious surveillance practice, frisk searches, and how useful they may or may not be. The author explains how they are frequently used on African Americans, while not so much on other races like the Caucasian majority, which gives this surveillance method a bad reputation. A scientific article titled An Analysis of the New York City Police Department’s “Stop-and-Frisk” Policy in the Context of Claims of Racial Bias, written by Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss, further confirms this racial profiling issue through frisking, by concluding with sufficient evidence, that the New York Police Department “was stopping blacks and Hispanics more often than whites” (Gelman, Fagan, and Kiss, 821). For the majority of whites, frisking is never really a threat in the first place because of our skin color, thus giving us social privileges as opposed to blacks who seem to lack most of

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

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

The Stop and Frisk policy is practiced in New York City and it involves a police officer stopping a potential suspect then they proceed to ask the person questions and/or pat them down. 84% of these stops recorded are young men typically of African American and Hispanic heritage. However, only 6% of these stops lead to an arrest. Many of these men are only being stopped because of the color of their skin, not because the police think they are suspicious of something. These statistics are leading people to accuse the police of racial profiling, and the abuse of privacy rights which has also led to a class action lawsuit. Even though these are the people who live in high crime areas, race doesn't

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

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

“And it 's the overuse that then created the negative reaction to the basic policy itself”, responded Bill Bratton in an interview with Here & Now. Stop and frisk has become an infamous practice amongst some people in the United States. People tend to misconstrue the real purpose of stop and frisk due to the behavior of certain officers in the police department. There is truth to the misconduct on the part of police officers, but this does not mean that the action of stop and frisk is unconstitutional.

“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