The Unconstitutional Stop and Frisk Policy

The “stop and frisk” method started in 1968 when the Supreme Court ruled that police could stop and frisk a citizen based on reasonable suspicion, no evidence required. On August 12, 2013 it was ruled that stop and frisk had been used in unconstitutional ways and violated the Fourteenth Amendment. It violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s promise of equal protection. This method came under fire when it became noticed that people from African American and Hispanics ethnic background were stopped more than Caucasian people. The definition of stop and frisk is a NYPD based policy where officers can stop people on the streets and frisk them if they believe that person has committed, were about to commit, or will commit a crime. The officers can do this without evidence and only on pure suspicion.

Many don’t support this system due to the widely held opinion that it enables and encourages prejudice. Many find that it blatantly focuses on African Americans and Hispanics with barely an effort to stop and frisk Caucasian people. Many people of color justifiably voiced their discomfort due to the fact that they felt as if they were being singled out due to their skin tone. According to a pie chart that shows the NYPD stops by race created by Adam Serwer and Jaeah Lee, African Americans and Hispanics were clearly stopped and targeted more.

The different percentages of stops by race were; 53% African Americans, 31% Hispanics, 10% Whites, and 6% other. With these numbers, we can clearly see that the number of African Americans and Hispanics that were stopped are far greater compared to the amount of times White people were stopped.

The NYPD would mainly target their “stop and frisk” method in Black and Hispanic neighborhoods such as Brooklyn, Starret City, and Harlem, but would very rarely go to mainly White neighborhoods. While the NYPD claims that they are just focusing on areas with the most crime, it still doesn’t answer why there are so many stops. Tracey Meares figures out that if the NYPD was in fact doing as they claimed, the amount of stops would increase alongside the crime rates. However, the amount of stops being done is in a clear surplus compared to the crime rates, so it is not increasing linearly.

By the police doing more stops in African American and Hispanic populated areas, it also increases their crime rate. This is a by the book case of over policing because officers are constantly targeting African Americans and Hispanics more. As a result, they are finding more crime in Black and Hispanic areas because that’s where they are mainly looking which gives the premise that those neighborhoods have much higher crime rates than Caucasian neighborhoods. However, if they put in the same amount of energy with the stop and frisk policy in Caucasian neighborhoods, then their crime rate would go up.

Another chart by Serwer and Lee shows how out of 2-3 million stops done to African American people, there were only 16,000 seizures. Out of the 1.4 million stops done to Hispanic people, there were only 14,000 seizures. Where there are 435,000 done to white people with 16,000 seizures.Stop and frisk is singling out African American and Hispanic communities and stops are made by the NYPD. This method does not result in significant drops in crime rates.

Greg Ridgeway finds that “black pedestrians were stopped at a rate that is 20 to 30 percent lower than their representation in crime-suspect descriptions. Hispanic pedestrians were stopped disproportionately more, by 5 to 10 percent, than their crime-suspect descriptions would predict.”

The stop and frisk policy has proven time and time again how racially motivated the stops are. Through countless studies made by many unbiased people, the numbers always point to over policing in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. While some still support this prejudiced policy, it was found unconstitutional in 2013 by a federal judge in New York City. No matter how much people support this policy, it cannot be denied that the whole purpose of Stop and Frisk is to allow police officers to legally racially profile people without facing repercussions.