Stop And Frisk

539 Words3 Pages
Stop And Frisk As there are several ways to evaluate the effectiveness of stop and frisk the answer to the question of whether it is effective may differ depending upon how one chooses to evaluate the practice. To mention but two perspectives do we look carefully at why police say they use the power or do we look carefully about what communities of color have to say? Even when we have decided upon an approach to take with whose view we evaluate, the question of how we evaluate it is important. The police decide how to use the power and in the United States it appears that most departments use the power to a greater or lesser degree.That title goes to Philadelphia who in the last year has stopped almost twice as many of its citizens than has New York, at least relative to its population. We do know far less about stop and frisk in Philadelphia, but what we do know seems consistent with the New York experience. Other departments around the country generally do not make their data available to the public and therefore, their practices are hidden. I guess I should say that New York and Philadelphia have not willingly made their data available either…show more content…
This, of course is a very safe claim to make, because it cannot be testedthat is, we can never know who might know that police are targeting them or "their kind" and choose not to carry a gun or drugs or other contraband. The third reason that is given by police for stop and frisk is officer safety. This issue seemed to be important when the US Supreme Court gave its imprimatur to stop and frisk. Officers have the right to frisk someone if they feel that their safety is at stake. The police chiefs that I talk to tell me that this is an important reason for stop and frisk and that they are not as interested in hit rates when officer safety is at stake. So it seems that we should look at the evidence, or lack thereof, for this phenomenon. In conclusion to a certain extent, it depends upon the claim and where possible we should evaluate it in the context of other police activity. For example how much does stop and frisk suppress
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