Violating Human Rights: Stop And Frisk

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).

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 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

Based on the fifty-four percent of people that were searched, there is a strong assumption that the black demographic is being racially profiled. These statistics have remained consistent over fourteen years. These practices should be discontinued due to their moral implications. Article eleven of the UDHR states that all humans are entitled to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. However, when policemen stops a certain group of people, they clearly demonstrate mistrust in the innocence of a suspect, and discriminate by singling out black people, a violation of article seven. The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is also violated: “each man’s home is his castle.” Thus the government does not have the right to do arbitrary searches (“Fourth Amendment”). Stop-and-frisk processes appear to be unconstitutional and inhumane if racial profiling is involved. Using statistics, blacks seem to be targets of more “stop-and-frisks,” making the issue of racial profiling indisputable by the opposition.

Stop and frisk was not established until 1968 when the Supreme Court evaluated the fourteenth amendment due the protection against unreasonable search and seizures (West’s Encyclopedia of American law, 2008). The fourteenth amendment requires law enforcement officer’s probable cause for the reasoning for a search and seizer to proceed, without probable cause will result in an illegal search and seizure as well as a possible lawsuit brought against the department

Now a police officer has the right to detain and search any an all individuals without a warrant, just as long as she or he can justify a suspicion that the suspect may be armed. Also anything that an officer feels during pat downs may be used as probable cause for a complete and unwarranted search. Since the Terry vs. Ohio case the " stop and frisk" power had now been extended to the power to "frisk" cars (Cronin ,145-147).