Argumentative Essay On Stop And Frisk

Race consistently plays a key role in police brutality in the United States. Law enforcement has exposed minorities to discriminatory treatment and has many times physically abused minorities. Mistreatment is not always physical but sometimes non-violent harassment and humiliating. Police have been known to detain drivers for driving in certain areas or for driving a specific type of vehicle. The problem with racial profiling against minorities is that it creates distrust between racial minority communities and the police.

Sometimes police are put in situations that excessive force is needed. Some officers use these extreme measures in situations when it is not needed, police brutality should be addressed by testing police for for racial bias, require more training, and use body cameras. Bias is the favoring of or against one thing, person or group compared with another. Most of us have bias towards certain things and a lot of people do not even know that they do. The most common people have forms of bias and that includes police officers.

Authorities often pre-judge others by their race and/or appearance, without first having any actual evidence that makes their suspicion true. A report from 2011, showed that Hispanics as well as African Americans are more likely to be stopped and searched by policemen. Although they are less likely to have illegal possessions compared to white drivers, who are twice as likely to possess illegal contraband. (Natarajan)This causes police officers to accuse people and put them in a position that they shouldn't be in,

As feminism proves to be successful, more people are realizing that segregating a race or gender is detrimental to a country’s power and global image. However, racism is still very much prevalent in our society, most of it being unable to be proven. To eradicate racism, we must eliminate the roots of racial profiling, one of the most common factors of racism. Firstly, the government should make it mandatory for all law enforcement officers to put on and turn on body-cams. Although the initial stage could be pricy due to the overwhelming number of police officers, the advantages are nothing to sneeze at.

Racial profiling also is unethical and can raise racial tensions, it is unethical because it targets specific groups, while this may help narrow down a suspect pool, it also can target people who have committed no crime at all. Racial profiling can raise racial tensions in areas where racial profiling is most prevalent by law enforcement. Animosities tend to run high which results in those most likely to be profiled against won’t cooperate with law enforcement when necessary even if they have not committed any

Police Brutality The use of excessive force by the police is nothing new, and with so many cases out there, it is clear that "to serve and protect" does not exactly apply to all of law enforcement as it should. Even though in some cases the use of harsh force has resulted into solving big crimes, officers have used the excessive force for personal reasons like race. It has affected many lives in a different way and question the authority officers have.. Police Brutality is an ongoing problem and existent concern in the United States; the unjustified shootings,fatal choking, and rough treatment have contributed to the present problem of police brutality. Stop and frisk is a crucial problem that the police department goes through. Stop and frisk is when an officer suspects that someone is carrying a weapon or something illegal and will pat them down it helps the police officers to prevent a crime before it happens.

Because of racism, economy change, and police needing more training. According to “Its citizens who needs de-escalation not police” states that ‘The simple fact that it is the public who needs de-escalation.’ Police shows sense of emotion during a response. Depending on who is effected, and the type of harm that is being caused. They lack an understanding in the legal concepts of an officer’s “collective knowledge.” The suspects feel like the police officer do not communicate enough for them before they actually start assuming they going to jail or they being harassed for no reason. They generally misunderstand the standards of proof officers rely upon to stop/detain, investigate, search and/or arrest such as reasonable suspicion and probable cause.

The problem can be stopped by these three solutions: body cameras, investigation and different race. Police brutality is a big problem for the community. “In recent years, several high-profile incidents of abuse and misconduct by police have sparked widespread debate over the relationship between law enforcement officers and the public” (Police Brutality.) Law enforcement use self defense exoneration and the basic elements to defend their case. The first problem is the wrongful officers are not being convicted

Recent studies found that the most effective way of reducing gun crime is to lower the amount of guns available in circulation. In the US specifically, studies show that the stricter gun laws are in a state, the lower the amount of deaths related to guns occur (Graham). While many believe that further restrictions on guns would not be feasible, both Australia and the United Kingdom managed to highly restrict or ban guns from their nations in order to reduce gun-related deaths and crime (Graham). Australia was able to rid the country of around 650,000 guns and their rate of robberies per 100,000 people sank from about 100 to 60 (cite later 1). This program of complete gun confiscation costed Australia $230 million.

There has been many controversial issues about the “stop-and-frisk” law. One side believes that it is racially profiling the communities of minorities and the other side believes that it is helping communities rise away from violence. There is a lot of history and background on stop-and-frisk and how it originated in the United States, especially in different places around the world. This law has been very controversial even within the law itself, so controversial states are debating on getting rid of it completely. Many politicians speak on this tactic in both positive and negative ways and the statistical growths and decreases on this topic.

One concern is that BWP leads to over incarceration, which Kelling and Bratton respond to this by admitting that, yes, it does; however, the crimes people are being imprisoned for are far less serious than those that are being prevented by BWP and their sentences are thus much shorter. But, the main concern is that SQF, and therefore BWP is inadmissibly discriminatory towards minorities. Once again, Kelling and Bratton give ground by not defending the abhorrent results of the 2011 SQF’s, which resulted in over 700,000 stops and only a 6% success rate. They instead talk about how much their methods have improved with far fewer stops and a higher success rate. This may seem like an odd way to address the claim of discrimination, but the point is that they now are making much more calculated decisions when stopping people, and not just frisking minorities at random.

This argument, although not the most peaceful, is undoubtedly the most fair way of going about things, assuming of course there are no outside factors that would make the results biased. Gandhi once stated that “an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Clearly, our current judicial system cannot handle capital punishment, as it is too racially biased. It’s for the best that we end this senseless targeting of minorities before it’s too late and must endure Gandhi’s prediction. On the bright side, if we do all go blind, at least capital punishment trials may experience less racially-charged

Is the US Police department creating an environment in where it is allowed to use police force wrongly? I would agree. In most cases along with many documentaries, alleged crimes like these are not always adequately addressed by the Justice Department, sometimes even being shrugged off by the system. In simpler words I feel as if this is almost unfair. For those who might not know what this familiar, yet almost unrecognizable crime among officers is simpler terms is when the authorities abuse of their power, causing grave problems throughout the different communities across the country to which must be Immediately addressed by the system.

The officer was forced to react.. The assailant should have just given up, but he didn’t. Even though most people think that the penal system is not racist some people, like congresswoman Maxine Waters, say that “the color of your skin dictates whether you will be arrested or not, prosecuted harshly or less harshly, or receive a stiff sentence or gain probation or entry into treatment (“Is the Criminal Justice System Racist”). Even at a 2008 debate ”Barack Obama charged that blacks and whites “are arrested at very different rates, are convicted at very different rates, [and] receive very different sentences ... for the same crime” (“Is the Criminal Justice System

Racial profiling can cause multiple problems. Several law enforcement agencies have gone through expensive litigation over civil rights concerns. Police-citizen relations in those communities have been strained, making policing all the more challenging. Most importantly, racial profiling is unlikely to be an effective policing strategy as criminals can simply shift their activities outside the profile (e.g., if racial profiling begins with police stopping black males in their teens and twenties. The "cumulative impact of racial discrimination accounts for the special, way that blacks have of looking at and evaluating" their experiences in public encounters (Feagin, 1991:115).