Back than and up until now we still see an abundance of crime rate on the streets from illegal possession to murder. Ex mayor Michael Bloomberg has implemented a policy called Stop and Frisk in 2002. Some say it worked some say it doesn’t, from a ten-year period data shows that more then 5 million stops were made on young African American men who just made 1.9 percent of the city’s population according to New York Civil Liberties Union. Many politicians say it was a racial policy but it took weapons and drugs off the street. Stop and frisk was more proactive instead of reactive which means Acting before a situation becomes a source of confrontation. Research shows that crime has dropped drastically in 2002-Present since stop and frisk was implemented. Did it work? Many say no and blame the lead in our drinking water, which we will get into later. I believe Stop and Frisk didn’t lower crime to the effectiveness that we all would want it to work. 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
Although the original intent of the stop and frisk rule was to prevent crime, get guns off the streets, and increase public safety, the policy has turned into a racially bias program that stops innocent people and arrests those committing non-violent crimes by carrying marijuana. While the NYPD claims its stop and frisk policy is especially needed to get illegal guns off the street, just 0.15 out of each 100 stops over the last six years resulted in officers actually confiscating a firearm. That undeniably low figure is quite alarming when compared to the 40,000 New Yorkers who were arrested in 2008 for marijuana-related offenses, majority of them being black and Latino.
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).
“There’s no evidence that the stop-and-frisk is lowering or suppressing homicide rates in NYC. Murders have dropped steadily in 1990,” says Chris Dunn, spokesperson for the NYCLU. He’s saying that stop and frisks have nothing to do with the drop in homicides, statistics show that in 2002 97,296 people were stopped and there were 587 homicides, the numbers in 2012 were 685,724 and 532. With almost a 600% increase in stops there is no reason that we should only have 55 less homicides. There is a reason though; police are stopping people simply because they’re a minority. Or perhaps it’s because they are wearing a hoodie in the summer or shorts in the winter, which is cause for reasonable suspicion. This leads to distrust for law
According to (nyclu.org), “innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 5 million times since 2002, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent.” Many people believe that the police are taking advantage of people just by the way they are dressed, color of their skin, and the area they are in. Although it may seem unfair, police are trained to look for suspicious activity and if they believe someone could up to something they will enforce their use of force, stop and frisk.
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 practice of ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ in New York, by the federal courts, has been found unconstitutional not because of the actual process once the person was stopped, but because of the way they were targeting based on race with little to no reason. When you look at the racial breakdown of Stop-and-Frisk targets in New York from 2003-2015, consistently fifty percent (50%) or more were black (Bump) yet blacks make up twenty-five percent (25%) of the population (Matthews). White was not even a category as it was comprised in ‘other’. Latino was the only other category which comprised about twenty-five percent (25%) (Bump). Blacks make up twenty-five percent (25%) of the population in New York. In Pittsburgh, a city similar to New York, it was found that in traffic stops, black men are eight percent (8%) more likely to be frisked and the grounds on being frisked are if the officer thinks there maybe be criminal activity (Ryan). Again, it is a hundred percent (100%) up to the officer whether a frisk in this case happens. The problem is how objective are police officers when stopping African Americans, specifically men, if statistically speaking they are stopped disproportionately.
Did you know that about 88 percent of all Stop and Frisk incidents result in finding the victim to be “clean” meaning ruled completely innocent without cause for an arrest? Remember this statistic and several others that I give you, because they are alarming. Currently, the Stop and Frisk situation in the United States seems to be at a crossroad. The Stop and Frisk practice originated during the 1950’s, when crime rates were at an all-time high within cities. The purpose of this practice was to help eliminate crime off the streets within these major inner cities. This practice was used by law enforcement during a time where racial segregation and racial tension began to build up; and a feud between black citizens and white law enforcement grew rapidly. Unfortunately, we still today live in a world where individuals often times find themselves in the middle of a “wrongdoing” in the eyes of the law enforcement. The results of these situations through history have not always turned fatal, but recently it seems that the end result from these situations do so. How many of you are aware of the incident that occurred between Eric Garner, a 43-year-old black Staten Island male, and the New York Police Department (NYPD)? For those of you who are not, victim Eric Garner was approached by the NYPD under the suspicion of selling untaxed cigarettes. This led to a Stop and Frisk altercation between
One of the most controversial of the New York Police Department procedures is the stop, question and frisk. It is a pro-active method of the NYPD because it reduce crime, even though the crime rate increase this year. However, the primary target of stop, question and frisk is in the minority communities, in which it lead as a racial
New York and Philadelphia are two out of a handful of states that suffer from huge amounts of criminal activity and homicide. The police of those states do not have enough officers to get to every crime scene immediately. The mayor of New York decided to implement a new program called Stop and Frisk. It worked well enough to also be implemented into Philadelphia. With the Stop and Frisk Program, New York and Philadelphia have been able to reduce the amount of illegal weapons from the street, arrest criminals or illegal immigrants, and find/stop any terrorists that may be lurking around.
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
In 2012, several people gathered in a silent protest to protest against the NYPD’s stop and frisk policies. Throughout the march, police officers have pushed protesters to leave the intersection and at some point shoved them to the ground. The protest began when Mayor Bloomberg stated that reduced crime and got guns off the street. This argument set forward by Bloomberg is not right at all. Stop and frisk policies not only victimize certain groups of people, but humiliate them. The way the police demonstrated their authority at the protest cannot be ignored.
The framework of Stop-and-Frisk started in 1968 in a case known as Terry v. Ohio. This was a landmark case that gave law enforcement the constitutional limitations by the United States Supreme Court to stop and search individuals in street encounters for weapon or contraband (Rengifo & Slocum, 2016). In 1996, the Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer opened an investigation to assess the effectiveness of Stop-and-Frisk on the minority communities in New York City. The assessment involved looking at 175,000 stop-and-frisk forms from 1998 to 1999. During the assessment, a report indicated a
First of all, a tactic used by police departments in several American cities called Stop and Frisk allows officers to stop, question, pat down, and search the belongings of anyone deemed suspicious. In addition, this tactic has removed illegal drugs and guns off the streets. “Advocates of the practice contend that it helps police target potential criminals, thereby preventing crimes before they are committed, and credit the practice for a reduction in crime rates” (Stop and Frisk 1). Many people credit stop and frisk with reducing New York City’s crime rate from its highs in the 60s-90’s. “New York City’s crime rate has dropped 80% since the early 1990’s” (Stop and Frisk 5). For example, history has shown that most of these crimes and murders are committed by minority groups on minority groups.
As it stands, racial profiling is one of the many negatives the policy embraces while it also reminds many of the harsh times America lived in aswell. In 1964, congress passed the civil rights movement; Martin Luther King Jr. was one of the top leading advocates for nonviolent social change. Him and many activists fought long and hard to risk their lives in the name of freedom and equality for all. New York’s infamous ‘’stop-and-frisk’’ promotes the disturbance of natural rights. In 2016, out of 12,404 stops: 52% were blacks, 29% were latinos, and only 9% were white. This is a law