Stop and Frisk and racial profiling are two phrases that have seemed to become on in the same. But, police officers and officials claim that is not the case, and stopping a person has nothing to do with their race, and there is always suspicion that causes a police officer to stop someone “randomly” on the street. According to The Atlantic, these actions are “not racially driven profiling, its crime driven profiling”. But how can that be justified with the percentages of how many white people are stopped in comparison to that of African Americans and Latinos?
In the wnyc.org article For City Teens, Stop-And-Frisk Is Black and White, this does not seem to be the case. Comparing Stuyvesant High School, which is predominately a white population with Teachers Preparatory School, which is 99% Latino or African American the experience with this issue are on the two extreme ends of the spectrum. This clearly shows that race does play a huge role in who is getting stopped on the street. These teens have agreed that the reason they have been stopped, or not stopped, is simply because of their appearance and color of their skin. One student even claims he has never been stopped because he is “a skinny white kid”. If it were crime driven profiling, why would white kids not be stopped nearly as much as those of the other races? Aren’t they just as capable of doing illegal things? And how can you tell if there is criminal activity going on just by watching someone walk down the street? In the wnyc.org article one girl has noticed she gets stopped less if she wears her school backpack. To me, if I saw a backpack I would think it would be more suspicious, especially if it is not near school hours.
These first hand examples show how much racial profiling play a role in the stop-and- frisk actions. And yes, like The Atlantic article stated race will play a role because cops are human and everyone does this, but there also needs to be more of a conscious effort to stop singling out specific races and treated others like they are more “innocent”, because that is not true. If this continues it will become such a strong self-fulfilling prophecy of being suspected of crime that they will start believing they do, like said in The Atlantic. These kids and teens will think they are bad just because of the way they look and then commit crimes and that will not help the issue or help the kids improve their lives either.
Sources
http://www.wnyc.org/story/212460-city-teenagers-say-stop-and-frisk-all-about-race-and-class/
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/03/is-stop-and-frisk-worth-it/358644/
Hi, Emily! I agree with you that the actions involved in “stop and frisk” are not completely “crime driven profiling,” and that they are, instead, leaning more towards “racially driven profiling.” As said in The Atlantic, although 75% of crime has been cut in NYC from “stop and frisk” since the 1990s, it was found that only 12 percent of 686,000 stops in 2011 resulted in arrests. A great majority of those 686,000 stops involved blacks and Hispanics, so it is undeniable that many innocent blacks/Hispanics are being stopped and essentially, humiliated for crimes they did not commit. The statistics with Stuyvesant High School and Teachers Preparatory School definitely make sense with this trend, but I am wondering what you mean by a “conscious effort to stop singling out specific races.” Yes, police officers should not single out blacks and Hispanics, but does that mean that they need to stop and frisk everyone instead in order to maintain safety in cities? Or, do we need to lessen stop and frisk overall? I feel as though either one will result in negative results with surveillance that it too aggressive, and the other facilitating disorder. Maybe this “conscious effort” could be the broken windows concept, where social workers work with police officers to help those that are troubled and prevent crimes in that manner. Since you brought up the topic of how black and Hispanic children/teens are more likely to commit crimes with the police always targetting them, perhaps social workers should instead work in these communities to get closer to the root of problems found in these communities. I completely agree with you that crime can stem from the traumas these young children receive and instead of just focusing on those that immediately need help with housing/drug abuse related problems, communities should also seek to assist and hear out the younger generation.
I agree with you Emily. Even though The Atlantic article states that their actions are “not racially driven profiling, its crime driven profiling,” the statistics say otherwise. Comparing the number of Hispanics and blacks being stopped and frisked to the number of while people shows that stop and frisk does involve at least some racial profiling. According to your WNYC article, 86% of teenagers being stopped are either black or Latino. If stop and frisk is just crime driven profiling, why are such a large percentage of teenagers black or Hispanic? What makes them look more “suspicious” besides their appearance? Is it just because they believe blacks or Hispanics are more likely to be involved in criminal activity, and thus stop them more frequently?
I also agree with you Devin when you say that social workers should be involved in the communities with the higher crime rates. I think that it would be more beneficial to get help from social workers early on rather than these teenagers constantly being stopped and frisked to grow up distrusting police officers. By getting social workers to work alongside the police officers, crime can still be controlled and, like you said, “assist and hear out the younger generation.”