Is 'stop and frisk' worth it?

[Formaldehyde]

Underline mine, and I agree totally.

What do you do when the 11th person was a white male killed by his white wife? Does it then become "based on crime reports, not census reports" to target anybody the cops feel like stopping?

The only thing this proves is that although Bloomberg is no longer a Republican, he is certainly still an over-the-top authoritarian who really has no idea what the basic precepts of this country even mean.

Bloomberg is apparently guilty of profiling and violating the civil rights of thousands of Americans. If so, he should be arrested, tried, and put behind bars where he belongs.

 

[Quackers]

Stopping and searching people for no good reason always seemed wrong to me - though it's perfectly legal in Brazil.

I'm entirely fine with harsh punishments for petty crimes, though. And I also don't think that sending more cops to violent areas, where most of the people are black or latin, is racism. It makes perfect sense to me that the police should be where it's needed the most.

Finally: if this is indeed reducing violence - and apparently it is - who are the people who had their lives saved? Mostly poor, black and latin youth. They are the primary victims of violence and thus also the primary benefited by a reduction in it.

This.

 

[Save_Ferris]

That doesn't mean they can search me anytime they want for any reason - there's a reason the concept of privacy exists.

It's not for any reason. It's to stop crime. It's like how you have to pay taxes, but it's for the general good of the community. Yes, it can be intimidating, but that doesn't mean the act can't be modified. It's far from perfect. The police do care about the people, however, that's why you hear about people being arrested.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Oh, well. To "stop crime" that has never been lower in recent history is certainly worth losing our basic rights that still separates us from a police state to achieve.

Why didn't you say so in the first place?

 

[JollyRoger]

It's not for any reason. It's to stop crime. It's like how you have to pay taxes, but it's for the general good of the community. Yes, it can be intimidating, but that doesn't mean the act can't be modified. It's far from perfect. The police do care about the people, however, that's why you hear about people being arrested.

So would you agree with the equivalent of a stop and frisk of business and personal computers to stop white collar crime and copyright infringement?

 

[ParkCungHee]

Isn't it a bit selfish to refuse to be searched for the reductionof crime?

That's a good point. I'd like you to spread your cheeks on a webcam to make sure you're not hiding any drugs.

 

[Quintillus]

In a break from the august tradition of proclaiming to be an expert in everything, even things that the voter has never heard of before, I voted "I don't know". If it truly is carried out fairly based on crime statistics and requires some offence to have been done first - not just walking down a certain street - then perhaps, especially if it has truly been effective. However... based on what I've seen in this thread, it's questionable that (1) it isn't racially profiling, beyond what any crime statistics might justify, (2) you have to have always committed some offence, and (3) it's truly making a difference.

What I will venture is that I also found it -able that New York was the safest city in America, though perhaps you could make a case for the safest of a certain size, and that it probably shouldn't be for any petty offence. For example, frisking everyone who jaywalks probably won't raise goodwill and helpfulness. Maybe if it were suspected that a particular jaywalker was a criminal in more ways than that, but not every one.

 

[Yeekim]

Oh, well. To "stop crime" that has never been lower in recent history is certainly worth losing our basic rights that still separates us from a police state to achieve.

Why didn't you say so in the first place?

If it was my community where nightly shootouts took place, I'd gladly submit to stop and frisk as I enter my front door every day.
But as long as it is somebody else getting gunned down, it is of course much cooler to engage in outrage over racial profiling.

 

[JollyRoger]

If it was my community where nightly shootouts took place, I'd gladly submit to stop and frisk as I enter my front door every day.
But as long as it is somebody else getting gunned down, it is of course much cooler to engage in outrage over racial profiling.

So what if nightly shootouts did not take place? Would it still be ok? What is your evidence that nightly shootouts are taking place in all areas where police are conducting searches without individualized probable cause?

 

[Formaldehyde]

If it was my community where nightly shootouts took place, I'd gladly submit to stop and frisk as I enter my front door every day.
But as long as it is somebody else getting gunned down, it is of course much cooler to engage in outrage over racial profiling.

Only there aren't "nightly shootouts". You have apparently been watching far too many police shows on TV.

And for the most part, it is "criminals" shooting other "criminals". There is a risk involved in criminals ripping off violent criminals. If they weren't using handguns they would be using knives or baseball bats, or even their fists.

But even so criminals still have rights, as do the people who merely live nearby. Why are you so opposed to providing them to everybody on an equal basis?

 

[Yeekim]

So what if nightly shootouts did not take place? Would it still be ok? What is your evidence that nightly shootouts are taking place in all areas where police are conducting searches without individualized probable cause?

Only there aren't "nightly shootouts". You have apparently been watching far too many police shows on TV.

And for the most part, it is "criminals" shooting other "criminals". There is a risk involved in criminals ripping off violent criminals. If they weren't using handguns they would be using knives or baseball bats, or even their fists.

But even so criminals still have rights, as do the people who merely live nearby. Why are you so opposed to providing them to everybody on an equal basis?

From article:

For 18 months, police said, their 10-block Brownsville turf war resulted in six homicides, with 38 people wounded in 32 shooting incidents.

10 blocks, 18 months, 32 shooting incidents? 14.1 violent crimes per 1,000 residents?

Again, if I was someone who "merely lived nearby", getting stopped and frisked once every other month would be about the last of my worries.

As to "whether it would be ok if the place was not rife with violent crime?" - no, because would then be a waste of police resources. And also "unreasonable" as per 4th amendment.

 

[Formaldehyde]

10 blocks, 18 months, 32 shooting incidents? 14.1 violent crimes per 1,000 residents?

Simple arithmetic shows that 32 "shooting incidents" in 18 months works out to an average of one every 17 days. It is hardly "nightly shootouts", even in this tiny region that is clearly a statistical anomaly.

But the question you should be asking is why are the police so incompetent that they cannot properly deal with this chronic problem without violating the basic human rights of everybody who happens to be black or some other dark-skinned minority, especially when it is confined to such a tiny area.

Turning some cities into police states is not the solution, especially when that country already has 10 times the incarceration rate of most modern countries. We already clearly suffer from excessive "law and order" as it is.

And profiling is against the law. Those who practice it are also "criminals".

 

[Yeekim]

Simple arithmetic shows that 32 "shooting incidents" in 18 months means that there was one every 17 days. It is hardly a "daily occurrance", even in this tiny region that is clearly a statistical anomaly.

But the question you should be asking is why are the police so incompetent that they cannot properly deal with this chronic problem without violating the basic human rights of everybody nearby, especially when it is confined to such a tiny area.

If such a tiny area is affected by such a violence spree, the answer is that stopping and frisking its residents does not qualify as "unreasonable" search and seizure in the sense of 4th amendment, but rather as entirely reasonable and competent reaction.

EDIT: Also, the "racial profiling" accusation is quite clearly nonsensical. If the residents of this high-crime neighborhood are overwhelmingly black, it only makes sense that people who get stopped there are black as well.

EDIT2: Your crazy policy of locking people up for ages for minor misdemeanors is entirely different thing altogether.

 

[Formaldehyde]

Do you really think this is the only region of NYC where the cops are openly violating the human rights of its citizens by clearly profiling innocent victims?

And it remains to be seen if this is actually constitutional or not. It will again likely depend upon whether or not one or two of the five reactionaries on the Supreme Court suddenly becoming "liberals" again. It certainly wasn't constitutional during any other period of our history.

 

[downtown]

And it remains to be seen if this is actually constitutional or not. It will again likely depend upon whether or not one or two of the five reactionaries on the Supreme Court suddenly becoming "liberals" again. It certainly wasn't constitutional during any other period of our history.

Cops have certainly had at least as invasive investigation techniques throughout our nation's history, from the Civil War (civil liberties lol) to the 50s and 60s.

As for other neighborhoods, can you elaborate, ideally with data, not just a random person in the newspaper complaining. The article seems to indicate that while there are a handful of frisks each month in more well-to-do neighborhoods, the activity is heavily concentrated in poor, crime heavy areas.

 

[Formaldehyde]

I never claimed that the police were acting the same in the more affluent white neighborhoods. If they did so they would be inundated with complaints, which is also the obvious problem regarding profiling.

I merely pointed out that this one neighborhood is clearly an anomaly which the police have apparently been largely incapable performing their jobs using their usual forms of harassment, intimidation, and coercion. There are no sections of NYC where "nightly shootouts" occur. The police aren't that incompetent. That is pure Hollywood.

From the quoted section in your own OP:

Critics, though, charge that this has come at a precious cost - the civil liberties of hundreds of thousands who are stopped and searched each year. Police stops in New York City have climbed steadily to more than 685,000 last year from nearly 161,000 in 2003. Only 12 percent of those stopped were arrested or ticketed. More than 85 percent were black or Hispanic, while they make up 51 percent of the city's population.

Do you really think the police are "stopping" 685,000 people a year in only a few high crime neighborhoods? Or are they now targeting blacks and Hispanics everywhere, just as they also do with Muslims?

Using even more draconian police state tactics against blacks and Hispanics isn't going to help resolve a problem isolated to a few neighborhoods.

 

[downtown]

I merely pointed out that this one neighborhood is clearly an anomaly which the police have apparently been largely incapable performing their jobs using their usual forms of harassment, intimidation, and coercion. There are no sections of NYC where "nightly shootouts" occur. The police aren't that incompetent. That is pure Hollywood.
.

Even if NYC doesn't have violence of that magnitude, other cities do (or have close to it). Would a city with a much higher rate of gun violence, say, Chicago or New Orleans, but justifed? Would be police be justifed in using such tactics only in "those few statistical aberation" neighborhoods?

 

[Formaldehyde]

Again, why shouldn't everybody in this country have the same basic human rights, even if they are unfortunate enough to have to live in a bad neighborhood? They certainly did before this program started, and yet the same violence is still occurring in a few bad neighborhood.

 

[downtown]

Again, why shouldn't everybody in this country have the same basic human rights, even if they are unfortunate enough to have to live in a bad neighborhood? They certainly did before this program started, and yet the same violence is still occurring in a few bad neighborhood.

Some might argue that the right not to get shot in the face trumps the right to not get written up for jaywalking, or the right not to checked for illegal firearms.

Do you have a better idea for solving gang violence?

 

[Formaldehyde]

As long as they are only shooting each other in small isolated areas where the police are too incompetent or uncaring to stop them, who really cares?

It certainly isn't a reason to give up our basic human rights any more than 9/11 was.