Whether police discriminate in their use of force during police stops has been a topic of debate recently due to the rise in shootings of unarmed, African-American men. Since discrimination is hard to measure and views on discrimination can differ depending on the circumstance, this is a hard question to answer. However, evidence from multiple studies can help those who do not yet have a position on this issue to form an opinion. The hit rate test is one of the most credible tests for discrimination since it is frequently used in court. In order to pass the hit rate test, police officers must stop an equal number of African-American and white citizens and successfully find a weapon during each stop. A group of researchers conducted a study in New York City that focuses on stops in which the officers suspected a weapon. They found that 11% of stops led to finding a weapon on whites, and 2.5% of stops led to finding a weapon on African-Americans (Geol). This data shows that police officers stop white citizens when they see them clearly violating the law, and they stop the majority of African-Americans that they encounter. …show more content…
Ronald Fryer used data on police stops in New York City that involved non-lethal force in order to determine if African-Americans experience more force than whites. According to his research, African-Americans are between 46% and 50% more likely than whites to experience non-lethal force during a police encounter, depending on whether certain factors are controlled for (Fryer). To boost his credibility, Fryer also studied police public contact surveys and found that African-Americans are between 2.7 and 3.3 times more likely to experience force than whites
Many cases of police brutality where the victim is of different ethnicity can be highlighted more significantly. According to the book “Continuing the Struggle for Justice” (p.216), many people believe that the issue of race and police brutality should be treated as one and that on occasion police officers do...
...ack and Latino communities remain to be the overwhelming aim of these procedures. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports. Linking police stops to violent crime suspects is a bad calculation. Only 11 percent of stops in 2011 were founded to be on an account of a felony suspect and from 2002 to 2011, black and Latino citizens made up close to 90 percent of individuals stopped, and about 88 percent of stops, more than 3 million, were innocent New Yorkers. Even in areas that are mostly white, black and Latino New Yorkers face the inconsistent burden. For instance, in 2011, African American citizens and Latino New Yorkers made up over 24 percent of the residents of Park Slope, but they also made up 79 percent of all the stops made by the NYPD. Making Stop-and-Frisk clearly discriminatory.
In 1990, there was a total of 2,245 murders in New York, but over the past nine years, this total has been less than 600 (NYCLU). However, there has not been evident proof that the stop-and-frisk procedure is the reason of the declination of the crime rate. Indeed, stop-and-frisk contributes to some downturn of crime but the number is not high enough for the citizen and police to rely on. Specifically, only 3% of 2.4 million stops result in conviction. Some 2% of those arrests – or 0.1% of all stops – led to a conviction for a violent crime. Only 2% of arrests led to a conviction for possession of a weapon (Gabatt, A., 2013). In other words, the decrease in crime due to stop-and-frisk is mostly due to the discovery of possessed of weapons. Therefore, stop-and- frisk is not an effective procedure to use because it does not represent a huge impact in people’s safety (Gabatt, A., 2013). The author has done research about how police base their initiation towards the procedure of stop-and-frisk. Researchers have found that stop-and-frisk is a crime prevention strategy that gives a police officer the permission to stop a person based on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity and frisk based on “reasonable suspicion” that the person is armed and dangerous. This controversy is mainly because of racial profiling. “Reasonable suspicion” was described by the court as “common sense” (Avdija, A., 2013). Although, the
While the stop and frisk program ultimately seems like a great idea and that it will help residents of New York City feel safer while on the streets, there has been much controversy with this program. The issue of racial profiling is largely discussed when talking about NYPD’s stop and frisk program. Besides police officers targeting lower income neighborhoods, more stops are of African Americans or Latinos than of whites. These stops often end up with a higher arrest rate. Of the 685,784 stopped last year, 92% were male and 87% were African American or Latino (Devereaux, 2012).
Some consider racial profiling a viable tool to reduce crime. The New Century Foundation, a non-profit organization based in the Washington, D.C. suburb of Oakton, VA, published a report on the American Renaissance website, stating that African-Americans commit 90% of the approximately 1,700,000 interracial crimes of violence that occurs every year in the United States. They are more than fifty times more likely to commit violent crimes against whites than vice versa. According to this same report, African-Americans are much more likely to commit violent crimes than whites and wh...
“From 2005 to mid-2008, approximately eighty percent of total stops made were of Blacks and Latinos, who comprise twenty-five percent and twenty-eight percent of New York City’s total population, respectively. During this same time period, only about ten percent of stops were of Whites, who comprise forty-four percent of the city’s population” (“Restoring a National Consensus”). Ray Kelly, appointed Police Commissioner by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of New York in 2013, has not only accepted stop-and-frisk, a program that allows law enforcers to stop individuals and search them, but has multiplied its use. Kelly argued that New Yorkers of color, who have been unevenly targeted un...
One of the biggest reason stop-and-frisk should be abolished is in hopes to decrease such blatant racial profiling that has been going on under the name of “stop-and-frisk”. In 2007, 55% of the people stopped in New York were blacks and 30% were Hispanic (“Update: Crime and Race”). When checked again in 2011 a total of 685,000 people were stopped by the police of that 685,000, 52.9% were African Americans, 33.7% were Latino, and 9.3% were white (“Racial Profiling”). There is a story of an innocent victim of the stop-and-frisk policy, a man by the name of Robert Taylor. Police in Torrance stopped the elderly man and claimed he fit the description of a suspect that was linked to a robbery. But there was one simple problem; Taylor is a light complexioned, tall, 60 year-old man and the suspect was believed to be a short, dark complexioned, stocky man in his thirties; nothing like Taylor at all (Hutchinson). His shows that the police do not always stop people based on the right reasons, they tend to stop people based on the color of thei...
One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling. This is the police practice of stopping, questioning, and searching potential criminal suspects in vehicles or on the street based solely on their racial appearance (Human Rights Watch, 2000). This type of profiling has contributed to racially disproportionate drug arrests, as well as, arrests for other crimes. It makes sense that the more individuals police stop, question and search, the more people they will find with reason for arrest. So, if the majority of these types of stop and frisk searches are done on a certain race then it makes sense that tha...
Allegations of being pulled over by the police for simply being of a minority are seen as propitious because they believe that “it’s absurd to look at who’s being stopped without looking at who’s speeding” (Donald, P1010). These individuals also believe that Benchmarks are inaccurate and unreliable, showing that it would be unclear how often police pull over a certain minority group. They also believe that some department stores “may have employees that racially profile there customers but it isn’t the way that our security are trained to seek out those attempting to shoplift” (Smith, P1) Also, they believe that crime rates in high crime areas have lowered because of the stop and frisk policy. “Our crime strategies and tools – have made New York City the safest big city in America”. This shows that this side of the racial profiling argument believes that racial profiling
For many individuals, police brutality is a non-existent matter because it does not directly affect them or the community in which they live. Yet for others, this is an everyday occurrence and few limitations have been set as to what is unjust and malicious behavior of an officer towards the public, therefore, several officers are rarel...
In the United States of America today, racial profiling is a deeply troubling national problem. Many people, usually minorities, experience it every day, as they suffer the humiliation of being stopped by police while driving, flying, or even walking for no other reason than their color, religion, or ethnicity. Racial profiling is a law enforcement practice steeped in racial stereotypes and different assumptions about the inclination of African-American, Latino, Asian, Native American or Arab people to commit particular types of crimes. The idea that people stay silent because they live in fear of being judged based on their race, allows racial profiling to live on.
Racial bias evolves from generation to generation, and we as citizens are supposed to be protected against such actions of discrimination especially by law enforcement, but such actions as stop and frisk, to include automobile and body searches for no other reason than the color of one’s skin is a violation of our civil rights. Instead of being violated in an inappropriate matter as openly as it was done while fighting for our civil rights, it’s now done through law enforcement. The Constitution is supposed to guarantee equal treatment under the law for everyone, but blacks and Hispanics are disproportionately victimized by police and other front line law enforcement officials. Racial disparities affect both innocent and guilty minority citizens, and are broken down into explanations such as; People of color commit more crimes, The Criminal Justice System is racially bias, and America is a racially bias society (Weich and Angulo, 2002). All of these explanations have been proven true by the actions of law enforcement and society, by using racial profiling as a means to target minority communities. Although, there are efforts
The writer contends that community policing can bridge the gap in trust between the community and police departments. Community policing allows citizens to get to know their community police officers. The relationship can have a positive impact on reducing crime. The writer contends that police officers must be able to use good judgement when they encounter violations. Selective enforcement is a key element of having a successful community policing program. Selective enforcement also has its critics. Critics will point out the inconsistencies with regard to selective enforcement. Critics argue that enforcement can be based on race, culture, and social status. Recent studies paint a different picture. A federal study of police and public contracts revealed that police stops are fairly similar across racial lines. The study revealed that whites are stopped at a rate of 8.9%, blacks at 8.1%, and Hispanics at 8.9%. The study did reveal that blacks are more likely to be search and arrested if they are stopped (Bohn & Haley,
Police brutality is one of the most serious human rights violations in the United States and it occurs everywhere. The reason why I chose this topic is because police brutality happens all the time in the United States and still remains unrecognized by many. Additionally, the public should be knowledgeable about this topic because of how serious this crime can be and the serious outcomes that police brutality can have on other police officers and the public. The job of police officers is to maintain public order, prevent, and detect crimes. They are involved in very dangerous and stressful occupations that can involve violent situations that must be stopped and controlled by any means. In many confrontations with people, police may find it necessary to use excessive force to take control of a certain situation. Sometimes this makes an officer fight with a suspect who resists being arrested. Not all cops in communities are great cops. At least once a year, the news covers a story about a person being beat by an officer. The article “Minority Threat and Police Brutality: Determinants of Civil Rights Criminal Complaints in U.S. Municipalities” by Malcolm D. Holmes from the University of Wyoming, uses the conflict theory to explain why officers go after minorities sometimes causing police brutality. It explains the police’s tension with African American and Latino males. Those minorities are the ones that retaliate more against police officers which causes the officer to use violent force to defend themselves.
Protests around the world have taken place to fight for justice in the black community. The immense number of deaths of unarmed black men and women is a clear sign that they are more likely to be killed by police than white people. Physical violence and excessive use of force by the U.S. police towards African Americans are seen in the news regularly. “People, including police officers, hold strong implicit associations between blacks, and probably Hispanics, and weapons, crime and aggression," said Jack Glaser. Police brutality statistics show that African Americans are three times more likely to be murdered by cops than any other race. Racial disparity in the United States is a coherent reason for the increase of criminal injustice in the United