A stop-and-frisk entails a brief and non-intrusive stop of a suspected law breaker by police. The fourth Amendment of the U.S constitution demands that prior to stopping an individual, the police must have a substantive reason to suspect a crime is being, has been, or is almost committed by the individual suspected (Michael, 2015). In case a police officer judiciously suspects that an individual is dangerous due to his or her possession of a weapon, the police is allowed by law to frisk the suspect. Despite the benefits of the stop and frisk, some policemen have used to propagate racism against the minorities in the U.S, thus infringing on their constitutional rights, hence it should be forbidden.
Stop and Frisk policy enables racist police officers to unleash their negative personal feelings on the minorities instead of having a reasonable suspicion or deducing objective evidence the suspect may be or about to be involved in a crime. Such incidence is the reason why version of NYC lawmakers ruled the policy and law was unconstitutional as it infringed on the rights of individuals especially the minorities. Most often racist police officers took almost 83% of their entire time to engage Hispanics and African-Americans (CBS News, 2013). However, the two minority groups constitute a great percentage of the U.S citizens. Consequently, the selective application of the policy has widened the racial discrimination among the Americans as the minorities feel the majority whites get favor based on their color and origin, thus racial profiling (Daniel, 2015). Consequently, there is incidence of fear among the minorities. For instance, in 2013 a police officer disclosed his senior commander instructed him to apply the policy on the right individuals, at the right time and at the right place. The officer gave the directive in reference to the African-Americans especially males, who were aged between 14- 21 years. Racial profiling infringes the constitutional rights of minorities to equal protection as stipulated under the 14 th amendment.
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Another reason the policy should be abolished is that it has several social costs among minorities that violate their rights. There are incidences that suggest that when the police applies stop and frisk law, it poses significant negative social effects on individuals of minority origin, thus violating their constitutional rights to social justice. Almost 40% of individuals in a study conducted by Vera Institute of Justice commented they had been stopped and frisked by the New York Department of Police almost 9 times (Natalie, 2019). Approximately 70% said they never gotten information for the reason for their detention (Natalie, 2019). 45% of the participants commented the police use the policy to put them down (Natalie, 2019). Almost the same percentage of the respondents said the police subjected them to physical force during the incidents and even threatened then using weapons. Such kind of acts by the police towards minorities has sparked social conflicts between white Americans, Hispanics and African-Americans leading to destruction of property, injuries, and deaths.
In summary, the stop and freak policy violates the constitutional rights of the minority groups with regard to the fifth amendment and right to life. Considering the far-reaching negative impacts of the stop and freak policy on the constitutional rights of the minorities propagated by the racist police officers, the U.S authority should forbid it.
References
CBS News. (2013) .NYC stop-and-frisk policy violates constitutional rights, federal judge rule. Retrieved from s https://www.bing.com/newtabredir?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbsnews.com%2Fnews%2Fnyc-stop-and-frisk-policy-violates-constitutional-rights-federal-judge-rules%2F on 8th April, 2021
Daniel, A,M. ( 2015). Stop and frisk: NYPD's 'broken windows' policing 'criminalizes' young black men. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/02/nypd-stop-and-frisk-keeshan-harley-young-black-men-targeted on 8 th April, 2021
Michael, W. (2015). Stop and Frisk: Your Search and Seizure Rights. Retrieved from
. https://www.thelaw.com/law/stop-and-frisk-your-search-and-seizure-rights.281/ on 8 th April, 2021
Natalie, R. (2019). 14 Pros and Cons of Stop and Frisk Law and Policy. Retrieved from https://www.bing.com/newtabredir?url=https%3A%2F%2Fconnectusfund.org%2F14-pros-and-cons-of-stop-and-frisk-law-and-policy on 8 th April, 2021
