Stop And Frisk Research Paper

Some people believe that the Stop-and-Frisk Program helps catch potential criminals and reduce crime in New York City. Stop-and-Frisk allows officers in New York City to stop individuals based on reasonable suspicion and search them for any possible illegal contraband. However, many of these searches are often unsuccessful in stopping crime. The practice of stop and frisk by the New York Police Department(NYPD) has not been effectively utilized and raise serious concerns. It is a process that should be discontinued in New York City because of how intrusive it is to the lives of citizens. There are three reasons why the practice of stop and frisk should be discontinued in New York City: racial profiling of minorities; illegal stopping of bystanders;
and violation of the rights of the people. Stop and frisk has been heavily fueled on racial discrimination over the past few years.
The program has attacked many innocent individuals based on their skin color.
Minorities are often the target of this program. “In the world of young Blacks and Latinos New York City, it has become a likelihood rather than possibility” (Hicks). Blacks and Latinos, mainly amongst the younger generations, have continuously become the primary target of stop and frisk. Not only are these tactics immoral, but they create a further distrust between the community and police. They instill fear into the people on a very personal level. Knowing that the police already view them as suspects, Black and Latino communities are more likely to commit a crime. “About 80 percent of those who are stopped and frisked are Black and Latino” (Hicks). The record breaking numbers have even prompted civil rights activists, leaders, and elected officials to protest several times. The public has had enough of this silence and has begun speaking out against New York’s police departments. “It’s racial profiling, it’s racism, and it’s having dire consequences in our city” (Taylor). Racial profiling is a tactic that humiliates and dehumanizes New Yorkers. Stop and frisk is a program that was made to protect society, but the NYPD has been taking advantage of it instead. The NYPD has also been criticized for illegally stopping bystanders with stop and
frisk. In order to make a stop, a police officer must have a reasonable suspicion that the person stopped has committed, is committing or is about to commit a felony or misdemeanor.
Stopping a person solely because of a ‘furtive movement,’ their ‘mere presence in a high crime area,’ or because he or she is "standing alone,’ are all ‘insufficient bases for a stop or a frisk’. (Mathias)
It has to be based on more than a mere suspicion or hunch. The New York Civil Liberties Union revealed that New Yorkers have been to subjected to police stops more than 5 million times since 2002 (“Stop-and-Frisk Data”). However, nearly nine out of 10 New Yorkers who have been stopped and frisked has been completely innocent. These actions have projected a negative image on the NYPD; exhibiting the fact that many of the officers weren’t properly trained. This can leave space for massive police abuse. The NYPD argued that the increase in stop and frisks helped reduced crime and kept people safe, but there were only a small number of arrests and less than 0.2 percent of guns recovered from the practice (“Stop and Frisk Facts”). That is a very poor yield rate for such an intrusive police act done to innocent bystanders who were illegally stopped. Both illegal stopping and racial profiling committed by the NYPD directly violates the people’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The rights given to the people by the Bill of Rights and Constitution are there to protect them. According to Joseph Goldstein, a federal judge ruled that the NYPD demonstrated a widespread disregard for the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause (“Judge Rejects New York’s Stop-and-Frisk Policy”). Many New Yorkers were searched and frisked without proper reasonable suspicion. It shows the neglect of the Fourth Amendment because the police did not take the proper steps before stopping and frisking them. This shows that these searches do not effectively find criminals and instead violates the rights of innocent citizens. The fuel of racial discrimination of stop and frisk is also a violation of the Fourteen Amendment.
US District Court Judge, Shira Scheindlin, in Rich Calder’s article discusses how the NYPD has been systematically targeting minorities and violating their 14th amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection (NYPD’s stop-frisk policy violated rights: judge). It shows evidence that minorities are treated poorly in comparison to other races, which increases their animosity towards the police. By seeking out innocent minorities, it not only deprives them of their rights, but also relinquishes the purpose of the stop and frisk. The NYPD’s actions have revealed their complete disregard for the rights of New York’s citizens.
New York City has reached a tipping point when hundreds of thousands of innocent people are stopped, interrogated, searched and humiliated by the NYPD for doing nothing more than walking to the subway, going to school or leaving work. (Mallory)
This displays the violation of the freedom of individuals to freely walk on the streets without the fear of being randomly targeted for stop and frisk. Citizens should not have to fear nor give up their rights in order to feel protected under the police
force.
The practice of Stop-and-Frisk in New York has not made the city safer than before. Not only is it an ineffective way of catching potential criminals and reducing crime order, it also has a widely negative effect on the public. If stop and frisk were to be discontinued in New York City, it would not mean an increase in violent crimes. The New York Civil Liberties Union revealed that other large cities such as Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Dallas have experience larger violent crime declines without relying on stop and frisk abuses (“Stop and Frisk Facts”). The racial profiling of minorities, illegal stopping of bystanders, and violation of peoples’ rights have damaged the relationship between the public and police force. In order for the police to be more effective, there needs to be trust and understanding between the people and police force.