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Stop And Frisk Research Paper

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Stop and Frisk/ Racial Profiling in New York City
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 …show more content…

An analysis by the NYCLU shows that innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and the Black and Latino communities are the target of these approaches. Even though the New York Police Department are cutting the crime activities by 29%, other large cities are getting better results without using the stop and frisk policy. Martial Arts Instructor, Tauren Murphy believes that the NYPD uses stop and frisk to cover it’s real intent. Murphy states “The vast majority of the time, it’s a way to harass young men of color. The shootings are unfortunate, but there should be more police in the community, working with the community and not just showing when there is trouble.” Residents of Bronx believe that if there are just more police around in general then the numbers of shooting will go down because no one is going to risk getting caught when there are so many officers around. Many people have said that they would not even go to the police for help because they distrust them that much, this “proactive policing” that is going on is just driving a deeper wedge between the police and the community. Ray Kelly, police commissioner says that “about 70 percent to 75 percent of the people described as committing violent crimes-- assault, …show more content…

This policy ruins the trust that the community has with the New York Police Department and studies have shown that it is not even effective. Stopping and frisking is pointless because many of the stops do not even led to an arrest and there is usually never anything illegal found on the people stopped. If this policy would stop, the police would build a better relationship with the community, and crime rates would go down using different, better tactics just like other big cities have done. Other large cities have actually gotten better results without using stop and frisk. The community should remember that the police are just doing there job and they are just trying to protect everyone, but the police should also spread out their manpower instead of just targeting it to certain areas which leads the people of New York to think that they are racially profiling

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