Stop and Frisk

Stop and Frisk: Racial Profiling or keeping us safe?

Introduction

the stop and frisk policy is a practice whereby police officers try to fight crime by stopping an individual they consider harmful based on a reasonable amount of suspicion (Berry, 36). The policeman then goes ahead to search, frisk and interrogate the individual. To do this the law requires that the officer of the law have reasonable suspicion that the person is in possession of a weapon that may be harmful to him/herself or other people, that the individual has already caused harm or is causing harm. The policy is intended to reduce the rates of crime and keep people safer without being discriminatory to any people of a particular race, ethnicity, religion or creed. The stop and frisk policy is mainly practiced and implemented in New York City by the New York police department (NYPD). Racial profiling is an issue closely related to the stop and frisk policy practices and implementation. Racial profiling is the act of using an individual’s race, color, religion as a basis of deciding whether to accord some treatment to them whether discriminatory or in favor of them. A practical example is the case of the well known and unpopular apartheid regime that was in South Africa where the blacks were discriminated against. In the context of the stop and frisk policy, racial profiling occurs when police officers are influenced by a persons color or race to enforce or exclude from law enforcement. This therefore hinders the spirit and process of law and justice. In the United States where the stop and frisk policy is enforced, racial profiling is rampant especially against individuals of African American and Latino descent .

For the longest time the police had always enforced the stop and frisk policy. In 1968 however it was evaluated at the Supreme Court of the United States under the fourth amendment bill of rights. The fourth amendment protects citizens of the state from unreasonable searches and...