By East Harlem Group-Fatema Arafa, Sara Brown, Julia Buczynski, & Christian Budhi
Currently in New York City, the types of policing being enforced are stop-and-frisk as well as “broken windows.” In the past, there were two other forms of policing called “zero tolerance” and “quality of life.” During the 1990s, “zero tolerance” and “quality of life” were adopted by New York City. “Zero tolerance” involves police officers focusing on areas with high crime rates, and arresting those committing any minor crimes. These arrests can also be made when the officer is suspicious of any criminal activity occurring, and there are no warnings given to those committing the crime. The problem with this form of policing is that many people who have been arrested were falsely accused of the crimes. Also, the city does state that the cases are usually dropped but there have been many instances where the minor crime is still on a person’s record and can adversely affect their careers. The Legal Action Center revealed that of the 2500 cases of criminal records, half have been incorrectly filed in the computer, meaning that half of those cases do not show that they were dismissed (Staples, 2012).
“Quality of life” policing is closely related to “zero tolerance” and it involves arresting those who have committed both non-criminal and minor offenses (INCITE, n.d.). “Quality of life” is also a form of community policing. Police officers focus on the crimes that show “social disorder” (What-When-How, n.d.). Some of these include loitering, sleeping in public areas, and littering.
“Broken windows” policing was adopted by Mayor Bill De Blasio, and it also stems from “quality of life” policing. This form of policing focuses on arresting for misdemeanors in order to prevent larger crimes from occurring. The problem with this form of policing is that it targets minority communities. It also led to the death of Eric Garner, a man who was selling untaxed cigarettes on the street, and who was arrested and put into a chokehold by a police officer. He was unable to breathe from the chokehold, and this resulted in his death (Sneed, 2014).
Currently, stop-and-frisk is a major form of policing in New York City. Stop-and-frisk policing allows an officer to stop anyone on the street if they are showing any suspicious activity. The officer is then allowed to search the person in order to see if they are in possession of anything illegal and arrest them if they are. Stop-and-frisk targets minority neighborhoods in NYC. Racial profiling is also occurring when the officers are out on the streets looking for any suspicious activity. According to the New York State Attorney General, only three percent of the stop-and-frisks carried out end with the person being convicted of the crime.
The policy of stop-and-frisk has been a controversial form of policing in recent years in New York City. It has also led to the distrust between the communities and the police. This form of policing was constituted in 1968, during which the Supreme Court case Terry vs. Ohio introduced the idea of justifiable pedestrian searches. This case involved a NYC police officer who observed two men by a convenience store because he believed that they were going to perform a robbery based on their suspicious activity. When the officer approached the men and searched them, he found a weapon that was concealed by one of the men, John W. Terry. After this occurred, the Supreme Court agreed to allow police officers to perform a search when there is a justifiable reason for the officer to stop and frisk that individual.
The issue with these policies is the heavy reliance on racial profiling as well as targeting of minorities like LGBT, immigrants…etc. In fact, In 2011, an estimated 686,000 people were stopped, the majority of them being African American and Latino. The New York Civil Liberties Union compiled a stop and frisk data based on the NYPD’s periodic public report of its stop and frisk activity. From the 685,724 people stopped, 53 % were African American, 32% were Latinos, 9% were white, and 51% were aged from 14 years old to 24 years old. Out of the 686,000 people halted, 89% were free from crime, and, according to NYPD’s reports, 9 out of the 10 who were stopped and frisked were innocent. In other words, this shows the stop and frisk programs are based on racial profiling, and how the stop and frisk program may not be as fruitful as many seem to think (Sneed, 2014).
Stop and Frisk is not an issue that is confined to New York City, or to New York State, it is a national problem. In order to redress the issues of Stop and Frisk on the state, city and locally in East Harlem, we must address it nationally. What is the national solution to Stop and Frisk? A solution that requires “anti-racial profiling and police accountability measures (NAACP, 2014)”
In a study conducted by the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), they found that only 30 states out of 50 clearly outlaw racial profiling, 30 states have laws that condone racial profiling, and only 17 states prohibit traffic stops that are unfounded. They also found that only 17 states prohibit breaking their anti-racial profiling laws, only 3 states “allow individuals to seek injunctive relief to stop officers or police departments from racial profiling”, 17 states mandate the gathering of information on all stops and searches and only 15 require the study and disclosure of such data and finally only 17 states investigate racial profiling complaints by mandating the formation of commissions for such a task. These findings show that many states in the United States have inadequate laws against racial profiling and some even condone racial profiling in their laws.
Why do so many states condone the use of racial profiling? Mayor Bloomberg justified Stop and Frisk’s reliance on racial profiling by claiming that, of those stopped by police, 90 percent of crimes documented were committed by black and Hispanic men. Yet, racial profiling does not lead to a deterrence in crime. For instance, a 1998 lawsuit against Maryland police showed that 73% of those stopped and frisked on the highway were African American even though they only made up 20% of the population. In addition, they found that of the African Americans stopped, none were more likely to be carrying drugs or weapons than other races. This case like many others shows that racial profiling is an ineffective tool against crime and a national solution is needed.
“Despite the gravity of abuses and the sad history of racial profiling in America, the country has yet to pass meaningful federal legislation to deal with the problem effectively[ii].” The fourth and fourteenth amendments of the constitution protect against racial profiling. The fourth amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, while the fourteenth amendment prohibits denial of rights to any individual or group. Unfortunately, many cases have resulted in the weakening of these amendments. The solution is to pass a federal law that ends racially-based profiling in Stop and Frisk as well as other law enforcement policies. This was the goal of the End Racial Profiling Act (ERPA), which was brought up in both houses of Congress. Despite numerous attempts, this bill still has not been passed. In order for police policies like Stop and Frisk to be effective, they cannot be biased against any one race, gender, or other minority. Such racially profiled policies have resulted in a disconnect between police and communities around the nation. Through the passage of ERPA, racial profiling would have been prohibited at all levels of government, a plan for the gathering and monitoring of racial profiling data as well as sanctions against transgression of the law would have been put into place.
Undoubtedly, a federal solution to racial profiling is only one step in addressing the issue in NYC, and specifically in East Harlem. In order for Stop and Frisk to be an effective tool against crime, there also need to be state, city and local solutions to the issues underlying stop and frisk. These solutions coupled with a federal law like ERPA, which will ensure police accountability and criminalize racial profiling will have a profound impact on police and citizens alike, reducing crime as police and citizens begin to trust one another.
In fact, since the mayoral election in 2013, we’ve watched a significant decrease in the rate of Stop-and-Frisks in New York City from 191,558 reported stops to only 46,235 in the entire city; that is just over a 75% drop. Considering that the crime rate didn’t see such a significant change as that, it’s easy to say that the Stop-and-Frisk policy was considerably ineffective. Even looking at past data, throughout the years we’ve seen the rate of Stop-and-Frisks change drastically — from year to year from over 600,000 in 2011 to the 46,000 we saw in 2014 — while the crime rate has remained the same throughout those years. The Bloomberg Administration has also claimed that there has been a decrease in crime rate since the introduction of Stop-and-Frisk, but that ignores the fact that there was already a significant steady decline in the crime rate since the 1980s in New York.
The main issue surrounding Stop-and-Frisk is the idea of racial profiling and police aggression through a policy that has proven to be ineffective. One proposed plan involves retraining officers to prevent the targeting of young black and latino men. Along with that, there should also be an increase in accountability for the officers in cases that are conducive of profiling. This would allow for officers to be more aware of how they are evaluating people and might possibly decrease the cases of racial profiling.
One disadvantage of the Stop-and-Frisk policy is the police quota that officers have to abide by. By presenting officers with a quota it forces them to look for trouble and sometimes not necessarily in the right places. Abolishing this quota, or at least reforming it would do a great deal of positive change in the eyes of racially profiled individuals. There wouldn’t be a need to find people to stop and there would be more focus on other things for officers. Reforming the quota to not only looking at the number of stops but also the constitutionality of the stops would also provide a positive change; giving specific reasons to the stops along with the number of stops would be really helpful. We already have a system for recording the reasons for Stop-and-Frisks, but the system is very generalized and needs to be more specific.
Stop-and-Frisk particularly affects East Harlem, where the majority of residents are black and Hispanic. Out of every neighborhood throughout the city, East Harlem has the greatest number of stops, with over 17,000 stops total in 2011. Almost half of those stops were cited as suspicion of illegal weapon possession, though many of them found no evidence of such firearms.
The NYPD’s focus on East Harlem is no surprise. East Harlem has higher proportions of black and Hispanic residents than in NYC overall, with 55% of the population being Hispanic, and 33% black. Furthermore, East Harlem residents are younger than the New York City population overall, with over 30% of the citizens of ages between 25 and 44. For a policy that historically targets young males of color, East Harlem presents ample opportunity for racially charged policing.
It’s clear that stop-and-frisk policy is based upon racial profiling. The result in East Harlem is a population of local residents who feel attacked by the very people charged with protecting them. Salaam Ellis, an East Harlem local and protestor in the “Stand Up, East Harlem” protest summed up the feeling of many residents, “I feel like the police are not here to protect me, if anything they are here to harass me, humiliate me, and make my life more difficult.”
Stop-and-frisk has become such a problem in the community in part because of a lack of accountability of the NYPD, who often abuse their power to search any “suspicious” characters. To prevent this major problem from continuing in East Harlem, the requirement of body camera on all NYPD officers should be instilled across the department. When police officer abuse of power holds consequences and can be seen by the public, cases of unlawful stop and frisk and police brutality will occur in far fewer numbers. This is an ideal solution because the cameras will not prevent the officers from responding quickly in emergency situations, unlike many proposed solutions, which require officers to check with a superior before taking any extreme actions. With a body-camera, officers are free to respond in any way they deem appropriate while being held accountable for the actions they take. However, this cannot be the only solution as proven by the Eric Garner case where an explicit video had been presented but was overlooked during the hearing. Other cases show the benefit of using body cameras. In South Carolina, a white police officer is being charged with murder for shooting a fleeing and unarmed 50 year old male named Walter Scott 8 times in the back, which was caught on camera.
In addition to ensuring that the police do not abuse their power through racial profiling, we need to ensure that the distribution of police throughout the neighborhoods of New York City do not place disproportionate amount of cops in East Harlem. East Harlem has historically had a bad reputation for a high rate of crime, but the reputation unfounded. In fact, the crime rate in East Harlem is 31 percent lower than the national average. There is no justifiable reason for the rate of stop-and-frisk to be so prevalent in the area, especially compared to other Manhattan boroughs. Decreasing the amount of police patrol in the area will drastically decrease tensions between the NYPD and East Harlem residents.
Not only will these new procedures prevent the unnecessary frisking of hundreds of innocent East Harlem residents, but will dramatically decrease tensions between the police force and the residents who feel under siege as well.
[i] Ana, Joanes, “Does the New York City Police Department Deserve Credit for the Decline in New Yorks City’s Homicide Rates-A Cross-City Comparison of Policing Strategies and Homicide Rates.” Colum. JL & Soc. Probs. 33 (1999): 265.
[ii]Staples, Brent. “The Human Cost of ‘Zero Tolerance.’” 28 April. 2012. Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
[iii]INCITE! “”Quality of Life” Policing.” (n.d.) Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
[iv]What-When-How. “Quality-of-Life Policing.” (n.d.) Web. 27 Apr. 2015.
[v]New York State Office of the Attorney General. “A Report on Arrests Arising From the New York City Police Department’s Stop-And-Frisk Practices.” Web. November 2013. http://www.ag.ny.gov/pdfs/OAG_REPORT_ON_SQF_PRACTICES_NOV_2013.pdf
[vi]Sneed, Tierney. “From Ferguson to Staten Island, Questions About Broken Window Policing.” Web. August 14, 2014.
[vii]“Born Suspect.”NAACP. Web. 24 Apr. 2015. http://naacp.3cdn.net/9312d4a4f8ed7681ff_fnm6b22xw.pdf
[viii]“Soapbox Derby, Stick Ball and Double-Dutch Coming to Thomas Jefferson Park.” DNAinfo New York. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20150424/east-harlem/soapbox-derby-stick-ball-double-dutch-coming-thomas-jefferson-park>.
[ix]“Residents of East Harlem – Manhattan’s Most Stopped-and-Frisked Neighborhood.” The Bronx Defenders. Web. 26 Apr. 2015. <http://www.bronxdefenders.org/residents-of-east-harlem-manhattans-most-stopped-and-frisked-neighborhood/>.
[x]Harris, David. “Ten Steps Bill de Blasio and Bill Bratton Should Take to Fix Stop-and-Frisk”. The Nation. 20 Dec. 2013. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.thenation.com/article/177683/ten-steps-bill-de-blasio-and-bill-bratton-should-take-fix-stop-and-frisk>.
[xi]Bostock, Mike. Fessenden, Ford. “‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is All but Gone From New York”. The New York Times. 19 Sep. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/19/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-is-all-but-gone-from-new-york.html?_r=0>.
[xii]“Stop-and-Frisk Data”. New York Civil Liberties Union. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.nyclu.org/content/stop-and-frisk-data>.
[xiii]Bump, Philip. “New York Has Essentially Eliminated Stop-and-Frisk — and Crime Is Still Down”. 3 Dec. 2014. Web. 27 Apr. 2015. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/12/03/new-york-has-essentially-eliminated-stop-and-frisk-and-crime-is-still-down/>.
