...The stop and frisk policy was adopted from English law in a number of American courts. In accordance with English common law, without statutory provisions, a police officer has the power to stop, question, and frisk suspects given reasonable circumstances. Based on a standard which holds less than probable cause, this power is granted upon the standard of reasonable suspicion. It is a question of circumstances of each individual case that determines whether reasonable detention and investigation is validated.[7] Legislation pertaining to constitutional requirements of stop and frisk practices were made into an area of concern by the Supreme Court when they encountered the case of Terry v. Ohio. While frisks were arguably illegal, before this point a police officer could only search someone either after arresting them or obtaining a search warrant. In the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and Peters v. New York, the Supreme Court granted limited approval in 1968 to frisks conducted by officers lacking probable cause for an arrest in order to search for weapons if the officer believes the subject to be dangerous. The Court's decision made suspicion of danger to an officer grounds for a "reasonable search".[8] Stop-and-frisk is not necessarily a new invention. In the early 1980s if a police officer had reasonable suspicion of a possible crime, he had the authority to stop someone and ask questions. If, based on the subject’s answers, the suspicion level did not escalate...
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...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 laws abiding New Yorkers every year, and the vast majority are black and Latino. Discriminatory and abusive policing in New York City remains a serious problem after decades of out-of-control policies and practices that are unaccountable to residents of the city. In 1994, Mayor Rudy Giuliani and NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton adopted policing strategies based on the unproven and controversial broken windows theory, an ideologically-driven...
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...Stop and Frisk The Stop and Frisk program in New York City is a exercise of the New York City Police Department , where police officers would stop and question thousands of walkers annually, and frisk them for weapons and other contraband. The rules for this such actions are found in “New York State Criminal Procedure Law section 140.50”, and are founded on the result of the United States Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. Ohio. Thousands people are stopped each year mostly are Blacks or Latino. Some judges have found that these stops are not based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Each day in New York City, and in many other cities in the country, police officers will stop ask questions, and every now and then frisk people...
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...In the early 1990s, violent crime in New York City reached an all-time peak. In response to the record high murder rate of 2,245 in the year 1990, the New York Police Department (NYPD) admitted that “whatever we are doing to reduce violent -– especially handgun related – crimes is not working.” Local press reported that New Yorkers were “afraid to wear jewelry in public”, and “’some citizens reported sprinting to subway exits when train doors opened to avoid victimization” (Bellin, 2014, p. 1503). The NYPD decided to implement a proactive approach to policing and developed the practice of Stop, Question, and Frisk (Stop and Frisk), or “the lawful practice of temporarily detaining, questioning, and, at times, searching civilians on the street”...
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...the decision that the courts had made. The cases that were being viewed the police was only conducting the stop search and frisk on certain people in the community( Buettner & Glaberson,2012 ). These cases made the police that was making the stops were making the case though racial profiling. The evidence in these case showed that the police would only stop a person bases on their minority. The police have been doing this a very long time the stop and frisk started in the early 1990’s but the reason that this was started to lower crime in high crime areas of the United States (Buettner & Glaberson,2012). This is going back to the 14th amendment the police or the government can’t...
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...Criminal Justice 207 Kwak The City That Became Safe Over the last ten years the United States has experienced a dramatic decrease in crime since the early 1990’s. New York, has maintained their remarkable drop in crime over the last twenty years in comparison. So it is only logical that criminologist would want to study this phenomenon to get to the root of its success. In “ The City That Became Safe” Zimring decides to go beyond New York’s surface success and find the causes in these decreases. Through his analysis of the New York’s constant decline in Zimring says: “We now know that life-threatening crime is not an incurable urban disease in the United States.” He takes the stance that improved policing strategies and systems explain New York’s constant decreasing in various area’s of crime. Dr. Zimring will further assert his stance through finding the causes of the decline and explain what else can be learned though criminological theories and crime control policy. As previously According to Zimring, New York’s decrease in serious crime is unprecedented among America’s biggest cities. In the 1990s the entire country experienced the largest documented crime decline of the twentieth century, in which the typical big city experienced approximately 35 to 40% reductions in felonies. But in most urban areas the downward trend ended around the year 2000. In contrast, Zimring notes that New York’s decline has so far lasted twice as long, and the average felony rate drop has...
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...History of African Americans and the Police The relationship between police officers and the African American communities can be understood by first understanding the policing history in the United States. Blacks were reminded of their inferior social standing through public spaces during segregation (Berrey and Foley, 2006, p. 81). African Americans were clearly suppressed by the justice system. It protected White male landowners. Experiences of African Americans led to their resistance that challenged the Jim Crow perspective of separate being equal (Berrey and Foley, 2006, p. 82). Separate but equal was merely a theory. However, in practice, the government treated Black individuals in the country as second class citizens in various settings,...
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...description of the stealing progress. Wilson radioed for backup and in little over minute and young man lay dead at the scene. He was unarmed. That young man was Michael Brown; the 18-year-old black boy who’s shooting this past summer sparked a major controversy and raised a lot of questions about Police Shootings in the U.S. and their undeniably pattern of racial issues. Currently young black males risk of being shot by police officers is 21 times more likely greater than young white males (Staples). Due to police tactics motivated by racial profiling, racially bias news and media that enhance minority stereotypes, United States law enforcement is targeting minorities that results in Police Shootings caused by racism. After Michael Brown’s tragic death, many realized that our country had seen similar circumstances like this before. A young, unarmed, black male shot dead, taking with him, the alternative perceptive of the incident in question. We are only left with shooters’ recollection of incident and possibly a few witnesses. It’s a story that we know all too well. Police shootings happen every day, but recent events begin to raise many questions; Of all these police shootings how many are black men? Who kills these young black men? Are all of the officers white? What is the cause...
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...Unethical Police Lauren Siebert CJA/214 April 16, 2013 Richard Banahan Police corruption and misconduct is an issue that is very close to home for me. I am experiencing the outcome as I sit here today. Whether people want to hear it or not, police corruption does exist, it has for a long time and probably will for another long time. During the course of this paper I will talk about police corruption, misconduct, and brutality, present two cases in which these acts took place, describe the details of the case and their outcomes and address my feelings on that outcome. As of right now, I am living one of the worst nightmares that anyone could imagine. My family is personally going through a case of police misconduct and corruption. My brother- in- law was 18 years old when he passed away on November 22, 2011. His mother sold him three fentanyl patches in which he chewed all at once and overdosed. Our family knew right away that she was responsible for his death but know we just had to prove it. We gathered every bit of evidence that we could, text messages between the two of them blatantly discussing the sale and purchase of the drugs, eye witness testimony from his friends that witnessed the sale, a video of him stating that he had bought drugs from his mother and her sister, the wrappers from the patches that have a DEA number on them that can be traced through the pharmacy right back to her, and a death certificate stating cause of death as fentanyl...
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...Ethnicity and the Police (Part II) Monica Angulo CJA/344 August 6, 2014 Instructor Name Ethnicity and the Police Racial profiling indicates the system law enforcement officials use to target people for suspicion of crime grounded on the person's race, ethnicity, religion or national origin. Criminal profiling, usually, as performed by police, is the deduction on a group of characteristics they consider to be connected with crime. An example of racial profiling is the use of race to conclude which motorists to stop for minor traffic violations (usually referred to as "driving while black” or “driving while brown"). The use of race to conclude which individuals to search for illegal paraphernalia is another example of racial profiling. This practice, however, can result contra productive, as highlighted in the following cases. Racial Profiling Gone Wrong Poor judgment calls based on racial profiling have been made by law enforcement officials, where racism and discrimination has taken over violating individuals’ civil rights, creating friction with the community and the public. NYC Cop Testifies to Targeting Young Black Men As hearings began to examine New York City’s stop and frisk policy, one police officer testified that he was instructed by superiors to target young Black men between the ages of 14 and 21. In 2011 alone, New York City police executed 685,724 stops as part of the stop and frisk policy. In total, they had...
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...Racial profiling deals with selecting a person for their complaint of a specific racial group. The main reason in advocating racial profiling in the background of criminal study can enlarge the possibility of arresting criminals. Paul Bou-Habib stated, “If the rate at which members of a specific racial group commits a crime is higher than that of other criminals will be caught if the police concentrate their efforts on investigating members of the racial group in question?” (2011, p.34). It is injustice, when police officers, political officials, and judges have learned how to automatically have a racist attitude towards blacks. For example, my friend was in McDonald’s parking lot and he was in the process of switching seats with his friend because he was exhausted of driving. While leaving the parking lot, the officer had pulled them over because he seen a black guy get out of his car and thought something seemed suspicious. The officer implied that my friend did not use his right turning signal. The term “driving while black has been used to describe the practice of law enforcement officials to stop African-American drivers without probable cause” (Weatherspoon, 2004). Currently, education has been a system of miss-education. I believe that children are pushed out of high school due to the treatment that they receive from the school faculty and staff. Dr. Carter G. Woodson published a book called “The Miss-Education of the Negro” in his book it explains how miss-education was...
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...deals with selecting a person within a stereotypical criteria according to their specific racial group. The main reason in advocating racial profiling in the background of criminal study can enlarge the possibility of arresting criminals. Paul Bou-Habib stated, “If the rate at which members of a specific racial group commits a crime is higher than that of other criminals will be caught if the police concentrate their efforts on investigating members of the racial group in question?” (2011, p.34). It is not right when police officers, political officials, and judges make decisions based on predetermined racist and some would say ignorant beliefs. For example, my friend was in McDonald’s parking lot and he was in the process of switching seats with his friend because he was exhausted of driving. . The term “driving while black has been used to describe the practice of law enforcement officials to stop African-American drivers without probable cause” (Weatherspoon, 2004). This is one of the leading minority men are pulled over in their vehicle. Which usually leads to a unwarranted stop and either summons or sometime even arrest depending on the situation. To make matters worse, once the individual is unjustly cited or arrested its almost impossible to fight the case. The justice system usually sides with the officer. Currently, the mis-education of children in our school systems has played a huge part in this problem. Racist beliefs are an acquired trait. No one...
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...Composition II Instructor Brandon Bond March 16th, 2014 Racial Disparities in the U.S. Judicial System The United States has the largest documented incarceration rate in the world. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics at yearend 2012, approximately 6,937,600 offenders were under the supervision of adult correctional systems (2013). Of this number, more than 60% of the inmates in prison are minorities however; they make up only 37% of the United States population. Considering the trends in which minorities commit crimes, such broad statistics conceal that racial disparities pervade each stage of the U.S. judicial system, from arrest to trial and sentencing. The first stage of the judicial system is the arrest made by an officer. Police are given an incredible amount of discretion to use that leads to bias and racial profiling. According to Paul Bou-Habib in his article “Racial Profiling and Background Injustice”, he states, “The main reason in favor of using racial profiling in the context of criminal investigation is that I can increase the chance of catching criminals” (para. 2). A key factor in the imbalance of the arrests on minorities in comparison to whites is that they commit more crimes at higher rates. In the article, “The Correlates of Law Enforcement Officers’ Automatic and Controlled-Race Based Responses to Criminal Suspects” by B. Michelle Peruche & E. Ashby Plant (2006) suggests that: Such responses may be influenced by stereotypic expectations. For...
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...Alice Niako English 15.6 Racial Profiling refers to the discriminatory practice by law enforcement officials of targets of targeted individuals for suspicion of crime based on the individual’s race, ethnicity, and religion or nation origin. I am against racial profiling, it is typical practiced by police upon reliance on a group of characteristics deemed to be associated with crime. In 2000, 20 state legislatures considered legislation which would require compiling records on police stops according to the journal article Racial Profiling by Baltimore: Prejudice Institute. Some proposals include fining police officers who engage in profiling and withholding state funds from offending police departments. According to the article Trayvon Martin case highlighted as radical profiling by Senate panel, “4.3 million street stops done by the New York Police Department from 2002 to 2011 disproportionately targeted black and Latino residents and that just 12 percent of total stops resulted in an arrest or summons.” This demonstrates the concept of racial profiling being abused, in these stops along with the Trayvon case “stereotypes played a role,” said Anthony Romero. Countless accounts have been made by activists regarding to this sensitive and controversial topic of racial profiling. “There is a real tension between black boys and the police. Not perceived but real. If you walk into any inner city school in the African American community and ask students, Have any of you ever been...
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...With the recent surge in potential and blatant police misconduct and use of excessive force there has been a national outcry for law enforcement accountability, as well as, improved transparency. The possibility that some of these acts have been racially motivated, involved profiling or geographic discrimination have only fueled the problem and further soured police and public relations. The integration of police body cameras by many departments has been employed to repair poor public image and increase transparency, (Koh 2017). However, the use of police body cameras is a singular tool that needs to be utilized alongside other critical changes. These changes are necessary to repair the damage that has been done and keep it from escalating...
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