The Stop-Question and Frisk Program

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 streets encounters for weapon or contraband (Rengifo & Slocum, 2016). In 1996, the Anthony 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 UF-250 Forms from 1998 to 1999. During

The stop and frisk policy came about many years ago. The stop and frisk is used for protection for the officer or officers. An officer can stop a suspect and frisk him/her for weapons, contraband or any other items if the officer feels any other suspicion. A Stop and Frisk do not require a warrant. This practice is very common now days, but similar procedures to stop and frisk policy started in the 1980s. According to Clark (2015), the earliest origins of stop and frisk were used in 1994 by Street Crime Unit to prevent the carrying of illegal guns in well-known hot spots and areas with high crime rates. The crime rates decreased over time, but it caused another issue in the communities.

As crime rates rise, police must come up with new methods to counteract these increases. Many of these methods come with pros and cons that may affect the way the public views Police officers and law enforcement in general. Some of these methods may seem like a violation to people’s rights, even though they may be constitutional. One of these methods known as Stop and Frisk is one of the most widely debated topics in America when it comes to dealing with Police actions and Constitutional rights.

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

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).

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

First let’s ask what does Stop and frisk actually mean legally? “It’s the situation in which a police officer who is suspicious of an individual detains the person and runs his hands lightly over the suspect's outer garments to determine if the person is carrying a concealed weapon.”

The “Stop and Frisk” program is a program established in several large cities that gives the right to law enforcement officials to stop and frisk any person on the street with reasonable cause. This program has taken over 6,000 guns off the street in New York since 2004. If it were to be stopped crime rates would go up, simply because people would now be able to carry weapons or any other illegal items and cops cannot stop and search/frisk them without a warrant or without seeing the item. As for violent crime falling with the stop of “Stop and Frisk” I do not really see that happening. Criminals are going to feel like they can walk the streets without worrying that they could get randomly stopped.

Stop and Frisk, originally originated from broken window policing which is to reduce crimes in neighborhoods, to restore order and reducing violent crimes within a persons community. The stop and frisk policy is actually part of the fourth amendment that requires a police officer to have a reasonable doubt that a crime is being, has being or is about to committed before even stopping a person or suspect for interrogations. If the police officer believes that the suspect is armed or suspicions or nervous about something related to a crime than they are allowed under the law to frisk the suspecting suspect. They do this by patting down a person from top to bottom on the outside of their clothing to feel if any weapon is being hidden upon the person.

Stop, Question, and Frisk is when police temporarily arrest a person and pat down his or her outer clothing base on a specific articulable facts which push a reasonable police officer to believe that this person might be armed or dangerous.

The terms “stop-and-frisk” is used as one, then the reality is that its two separate acts. Stops are the first act with frisks being the second that requires the police officer to have two different legal justifications. When a police officer stops a subject that officer must have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is in the act to commit a crime. To frisk a person by a police officer that officer must have reasonable suspicion to believe that the person who is stopped poses a threat to the officer’s safety which may include a concealed weapon ("Report on the NYPD 's stop and frisk policy," 2013).

What is stop and frisk? Who uses stop and frisk? According to Haq stop and frisk is a “program that enables a police officer to stop, question, and frisk a person for weapons”(1). This means that a police officer can only search someone if they possess reasonable suspicion and follow their guidelines. People should have open ideas of ways of reducing gun violence and not closing before hearing the proposals. People say that stop and frisk promote racial profiling and that it invades one’s privacy rights. Police officer are human being and make mistakes because no one is perfect in this Earth. Gun violence has been a main subject now a day, where you hear it on the news about a school shooting. Stop and frisk are an effective way to bring down crime rates in one’s city yet some people may think otherwise and think it’s not acceptable. The practice of stop and frisk is necessary to protect the people and to be capable to reduce crime off the streets; without it crime rates like gun violence would increase drastically.