Stop and frisk policy refers to a short non-intrusive police stop of a suspect. Before a suspect is stopped, the police are required to have a reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed the crime or is about to commit the crime. The before therefore in the event that they suspect a person to be armed and dangerous may frisk the suspect. There has been a heated debate over the past few years concerning the issue of whether stop and frisk policy is constitutional or not. Reports show that approximately five million people have been stopped for frisking by the NYPD. Out of every ten people stopped by the police, nine usually walk away without an arrest. The law requires the police to have a reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to happen before they could make a stop. The fact that almost 9 out of every ten people stopped walk away without any arrests means that the police goes against the constitution and the law by making a stop without having any reasonable suspicion that a crime is about to occur.
The critics of the stop and frisk policy have blamed the law for having various weaknesses. The first disadvantage of the stop and frisk program is the fact that it is invasive to the privacy of the individuals ( Goel, Rao & Shroff , 2016). The law requires that before police stop an individual for a search, they must have reasonable suspicion that the suspect is about to commit a crime. This is usually not the case as police stops a person without any reasonable suspicion and do a search in public. No one really likes it when the police stop you on the way amid the crowd and start searching you in a manner that appears disrespectful. The fourth amendment right warrens against unreasonable searches and seizure. The fact that 90% of those stopped by the police for frisking end up walking away without being arrested means that the system is just but a violation of the privacy of innocent individuals who have nothing linking them with criminal activities.
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Stop and frisk policy installs fear and distracts the innocent and law-abiding citizens, yet the criminals are left untargeted. Through the policy, the police use threats and violence against the innocent citizens. The Terry stops always entails harsh encounters which involve physical violence, ethnic degradation, and homophobia among the individuals and can sometimes lead to mental instability. The memory of having gone through harsh violent police checks in a public place when in the real sense one knows no criminal activity can always be traumatizing and shaming. The same policy despite having increased in the past years have not yielded any positive results compared to other alternative means used in some states. The stop and frisk have increased by up to 600% in the past one decade, but the rate of crime in the New York City has only dropped by 20% ( Goel, Rao & Shroff , 2016). This is in comparison to other cities like Chicago and Los Angeles which use alternative measures and has seen a reduction in the crime rates by up to 50%.
Another issue with the stop and frisk policy is that it is discriminative in nature in addition to the fact that it wastes time. Between 2002 and 2013, over 5 million individuals were stopped by the police for frisking and majority of the victims were blacks and Latin Americans ( Goel, Rao & Shroff , 2016). The police tend to target more blacks thus bringing in the idea of ethnicity. Racial profiling has therefore been a factor in this policy as the blacks, and the policy racially targets Latin Americans. Also, the policy tends to be a time-wasting activity both for the police and the suspect because 90% of the stops do not result in arrests. Being stopped and searched for more than 30 minutes and found innocent can be a time wasting exercise. Given that most searches do not result in arrests means that the policy is ineffective in preventing crime but rather invades the privacy of individuals as well as causing unnecessary trauma to the victims.
In support to the fact that the stop and frisk policy is unconstitutional, Judge Shira Scheindlin made a ruling in Floyd v City of New York case and noted that stop and frisk policy violates an individual’s rights to protection under the fourth and fourteenth amendments of the constitution ( Suero , 2015). This ruling came as a landmark for the African Americans who felt that they represented thousands of the individuals who are unlawfully stopped by the police. In a 195 page ruling, judge Shira mentioned that the policy violates the individual’s constitutional rights on two areas. First, the judge found that the practices by NYPD tend to violate the New York’s fourth amendment on the rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizure while at the same time finding that the practice is racially discriminative while it violates the Equal Protection Clause found in the 14th Amendment.
Despite the proponents of the stop and frisk policy who claim that the law has been so crucial in regulating crime in New York, there is very little evidence of high crime reduction compared to other cities that use alternative means. Instead, the law has proved to be racially discriminative as it violates the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment while at the same time violates individual’s rights to be free from unreasonable seizure or searches. Stop and frisk policy is therefore unconstitutional.
References
Goel, S., Rao, J. M., & Shroff, R. (2016). Precinct or prejudice? Understanding racial disparities in New York City’s stop-and-frisk policy. The Annals of Applied Statistics , 10 (1), 365-394.
Suero, W. (2015). Lessons from Floyd v. City of New York: Designing Race-Based Remedies for Equal Protection Violations in Stop & Frisk Cases. Geo. JL & Mod. Critical Race Persp. , 7 , 139.
