Stop, Question and Frisk, Essay Example

Many academic studies have shown that the stop, question, and frisk policy has lowered the rate of crime in New York City. Despite its lasting success, many New Yorkers have started petitioning this concept, claiming that it is built upon racist beliefs. Ultimately, it is difficult to determine whether the ends justify the means in this example. It is certainly unethical to enact racial profiling, but it is also unjust to allow preventable crime to occur. The city’s stop and frisk policy utilizes crime statistics as a basis for this technique and targets individuals who are within this demographic. Therefore, the individual’s that are typically stopped by the police are African American men living in impoverished neighborhoods. By engaging in this effort, police are assuming that civilians are immediately guilty based on their appearance, and claim that there is a right to search them on this basis. Since this is a violation of the presumption of innocence, it is necessary to determine whether stop, question, and frisk is a just policy or whether it should be removed from practice.

In order to effectively consider the ethics behind the stop, question, and frisk policy, it is first necessary to examine the responsibility of the police in protecting the public. Just as the government in the United States is built upon utilitarian ethics, stating that it is essential to take the action that benefits the greatest amount of individuals, the law enforcement agencies within the country behave in this manner as well. Therefore, law enforcement policies are created to protect the greatest number of people, even though this may hurt a small number of other individuals during the process. In considering stop, question, and frisk, we must therefore consider both the number of people that this policy protects in addition to the amount of people it harms. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, during the first half of 2014, “New Yorkers were stopped by the police 27,527 times” (New York Civil Liberties Union, 2014). Approximately 18% or 4,845 of these individuals were found to be guilty of a crime. A majority of those stopped were black or Latino. An article posted recently in the New York Times claims that “blacks committed 66 percent of all violent crime in New York in 2009, including 80 percent of shootings and 71 percent of robberies” (MacDonald, 2010). Based on these statistics, it is reasonable to argue that the police enacted this policy in order to protect the innocent. Since there are more innocent individuals being protected from these potential criminals, regardless of race, incorrectly identifying and questioning an individual to test their innocence is considered just in their eyes.

A major argument against stop, question, and frisk, which was briefly discussed above, is that it is an example of racial profiling. Although New York City crime statistics indicate that a majority of crimes are committed by black and Latino individuals, this is not saying that white, Asian, and other individuals never commit crimes. Based on existing crime statistics, it does make sense that those who are stopped by police fit the typical criminal demographic. However, it is also important to consider that these individuals are being targeted disproportionately. Ultimately, the stop, question, and frisk policy is effective because it is able to target specific populations that are statistically associated with crime, but it does appear to be racial profiling because one would expect members of other demographics to be subject to the same policy according to their proportional likelihood to commit a crime.

According to the 2013 “”Crime and Enforcement Activity in New York City” year-end enforcement report, Hispanic individuals committed 27% of violent crimes, white individuals committed 5.5% of violent crimes, black individuals committed 62% of violent crimes, Asian’s committed 2% of violent crimes, and American Indians committed less than 1% of violent crimes (NYPD, 2013). One shocking aspect of this statistic is that is disproportionately reflects the ethnic makeup of the city, indicating that a larger percentage of blacks and Latino’s do in fact commit more preventable violent crimes. This data is also significantly different from the proportions of individuals that were stopped by police in 2013. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, 56% of those that were stopped were black, 29% were Latino, and 11% were white. A comparison of these statistics indicate an unexpected truth; if the ideal stop, question, and frisk policy were to reflect the proportion of individuals that typically are involved in violent crime, it would be necessary to adjust the percentage of stops in a manner that would stop more black individuals and less white individuals. Therefore, in actuality, it appears that whites are being stopped more frequently than crime statistics indicate is necessary and blacks are not being stopped frequently enough.

Again, in terms of statistics, it is also important to consider that the percentage of individuals stopped and found guilty is relatively low. While this is a major criticism of the policy, it is necessary to understand that this practice is based on random statistical chance. There is about a 50% chance that any random individual in the population has the capacity to commit a crime, because there are two options: guilty or innocent. When the police force adds a statistical understanding to the process, they are more likely to guess each civilian’s status correctly. Since a majority of individuals do not commit crimes regardless of race, one would assume that the stop, question, and frisk method would be able to detect a criminal from 10 – 25% of the time. The statistics reported by the New York Civil Liberties Union indicates that this was the case in most years that this policing method has been used.

Since the stop, question, and frisk policy is based on statistics, it is one of the most reasonable policies utilized by the police force. However, there are many problems currently associated with it that must be tweaked before it can be considered ethical. Firstly, it is essential to ensure that officers stop, question, and frisk individuals in a manner that is proportional to crime statistics. In this research, violent crimes were primarily focused upon, but these statistics should account for other preventable crimes as well. Furthermore, we generally approach stop, question, and frisk from a racial perspective, but it is important to consider that there are many additional variables that go into play when attempting to predict what type of individual is more or less likely to commit a crime. Therefore, other readily available demographic factors such as clothing, zip code, and gender should be considered. It would be useful to continue academic studies on this subject to determine whether there is any correlation between crime and other readily identifiable factors. To do so, multivariate regression models should be generated and confounding variables should be identified.

In conclusion, I am in support of the stop, question, and frisk policy, provided that it is modified to become more effective. This policy was adapted by the New York City police department in an effort to reduce crime in areas of the metropolitan area in which crime is a major detriment to the individuals living there. While it appears that the policy is a form of racial profiling, the statistics make it appear that it is in fact protecting the innocent. It is preferable to prevent a crime from occurring rather than allowing it to occur and arresting an individual after the event, which helps the police force serve their true purpose. Unfortunately, it is not possible to ignore statistical data, and police efforts attempt to use this information in order to make the city safer.

It is possible that stop, question, and frisk will become obsolete in the future if more ethical policing strategies are developed and determined to be effective. However, for the time being, it appears that this is the best option to allow the New York City police force to appropriately serve and protect. Even stopping 10% of criminals from committing crimes makes a large difference. While a majority of those stopped are found to be innocent, this is a minor inconvenience that is necessary to protect the masses, providing a reasonable explanation for continued exaction of this policy despite criticism from the media.

References

MacDonald H. (2010). Fighting Crime Where the Criminals Are. The New York Times.  Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/26/opinion/26macdonald.html?_r=0

New York Civil Liberties Union. (2014). Stop-and-Frisk Data. Retrieved from  http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data

NYPD. (2013). Crime and Enforcement Activity in New York City. Retrieved from  http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/analysis_and_planning/2013_year_end_enforcement_report.pdf