In his article, “Is Stop and Frisk Worth it?” Daniel Bergner describes his experience while shadowing two police officers. He lists out their problems, but also explains the ways in which it is effective. His article convinced me that stop and frisk is a necessary policy. I understand that it is demeaning. I have been patted down at an airport, and it very uncomfortable and embarrassing. I expect it is even worse when it is done randomly on the street. But being demeaning is its only downside. In exchange for feeling uncomfortable, index offenses have been cut down by 75 percent. That is an incredible achievement, and makes me feel far safer. I understand that many police officers take stop and frisk too far; they are rude, and it would not surprise me if many of them discriminate based on race. This might be painful for people. But nonetheless, the system is working. If these measures are saving lives, preventing rape, and curbing other crimes; then these small side effects are worth it. If someone had a new policy equally effective in preventing crime, then we could consider ending stop and frisk. But I think it would be ridiculous to abolish a policy that is doing so much good.
I also think it is necessary for police to show a certain level of aggression. If they have to say, “please,” and respond respectfully to people who are disregarding their authority, then they will not be able to do their job. Police officers need to be able to command respect in order to be effective. Some people are capable of doing that with a soft voice, but most are not able to do that. If the police officer can get the person to cooperate from the beginning, then it is less likely that things will escalate which could lead to the cops making mistakes. These policeman are putting their lives on the line to keep the country safe, if they feel threatened then they need to react accordingly. With a good policeman, as long as the person is cooperating, then nothing should happen to them.
I am not saying that our current system is perfect. I included a statistical analysis of racial profiling compiled by Civilrights.org, and it shows that racial profiling is very real and an issue that needs to be worked on. I also included a blog called policemisconduct.net. The blog is run by several people, and they frequently post links to articles of police misconduct. The two policeman we see in “Is Stop and Frisk Worth It?” are doing a great job at preventing crimes. They seem to know what they are doing, who to target, and how to search them efficiently but not excessively. Although these two officers are very capable, many police officers need further training. They turn what could be a simple matter into complicated scandals (and even tragedies) by overreacting and treating people with excessive brutality. There have been many cases on the news of police officers using excessive force on people, and even killing them. You can read about a relatively recent example here. Although some police officers are abusing the stop and frisk policy, I still think it is necessary. The police officers themselves are causing problems, but the policy itself is effective.
Sources:
http://www.civilrights.org/publications/reports/racial-profiling2011/the-reality-of-racial.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/is-stop-and-frisk-worth-it/358644/
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-morrison-kelling-20150107-column.html#page=1
http://www.policemisconduct.net/
http://nypost.com/2015/04/09/cop-who-shot-black-man-had-prior-excessive-force-complaint-report/
Interesting points, David.
Nice source. The data you linked to seems much more thorough than that of the other two articles.
I thought some of the statistics mentioned in the Atlantic article seemed like shaky evidence: “Because 88 percent of the people stopped in New York were innocent, he says, the department was in effect arguing ‘that law-abiding black people are more suspicious—look more suspicious, behave more suspiciously—than law-abiding white people.'” I don’t really see how this is logical — from what I understand about statistics, the critical factor is the percentage of black people who commit crimes compared to the percentage of white people who commit crimes, not purely the number of innocent black or white people who are stopped by the police. Though maybe the use of that type of data is precisely what activists are upset about.