The power to stop and search has been a prominent policing tool since the Vagrancy Act of 1824. Fitzgerald (1999) argued that stops and search has a significant contribution to the detection and prevention of certain criminal acts happening as police can stop and search anyone who they have reasonable suspicion over , whether it is for carrying weapons, stolen goods or going equiped for stealing. However In 2012 , it started getting attention from legal, political and social entities because of its use by police officers. As the powerful tool which it is, when innapropriately applied, can have lasting consequences for the person stopped ( Stone and Pettigrew, 2000). The general opionion over stop and searches is extremly subjective, being …show more content…
al. ( 1997 ) discuss how the way in which the stops and searches are held, recorded, and made available to the public, affects the image of the police force on a wide basis. Alongside with the evolution of technology and data monitoring, better ways of keeping and providing more detailed records were made available. As a result, only after 1995 was there seen proof of the disproportionate stopping and searching of black people. This however led to ethnic minorities feeling targeted, and subsequently aiming their frustration towards the police force. Since this event took place, the number of stops and searches records fell. It is suggested that this decline in the use of stop and search powers by the police was a consequence of police officers suffering from low morale and were reluctant to stop people from the fear of being accused of racism. William Hague, leader of the Conservative Party argued in December 2000 that „ the Macpherson Report is ... being used to brand every police officer as a racist” ( Hague, 2000 ), and subsequently causing the rise in street crime since police morale was at its lowest at that time. This argument is improved when looking at relevant statistics from Havis and Best (2004), concerning complaints made towards police officers from people that were stoped and searched. Out of the complaints, 1.9 % white complainant, compared to 57.1 % Asian complainants, 53.8% black complainants and 75 % other ethnic origin alleged racist behaviour. Even though the numbers are significantly bigger for ethnic minorities, it was underlined that most of the incidents where the exchange occurred there was no witnesses, making it hard to substantiate a complaint, making it also easy to invoke claims of poor treatement or victimisation. Brian Stout (2010) claims that The British Crime Survey has identified some notable trends, one of them being the people of ethnic origin are at high risk of victimisation. This is the results of
Racism had an impact on black men, from various sectors and individuals of being a racist that creates inequality. Black men are targeted by the police, the use of stop and search because of the suspicion of carrying dangerous weapons and illegal drugs. There is a corroboration that the police actions towards racism and race equality are seen with the over representation of black crimes. They are being labelled with different names such as Black on Black crime. These inequalities affect their lives because they find it difficult to fit in the society, suffer from poverty and being jobless. Despite of New labour’s new strategies to improve the criminal justice system and persecute racist offenders, the signs of increasing statistic rate of stop and search by police remains frequent based on Ministry of Justice 2013/14
The judicial system in America has always endured much skepticism as to whether or not there is racial profiling amongst arrests. The stop and frisk policy of the NYPD has caused much controversy and publicity since being applied because of the clear racial disparity in stops. Now the question remains; Are cops being racially biased when choosing whom to stop or are they just targeting “high crime” neighborhoods, thus choosing minorities by default? This paper will examine the history behind stop and frisk policies. Along with referenced facts about the Stop and Frisk Policy, this paper will include and discuss methods and findings of my own personal field research.
...between them and the “Others,” though after 9/11 this “innocences” of living in an harmonious world was no longer due to the actions of the ‘terrorists’ (Street, 2003). The inquiry report on racial profiling from OHRC was serving a purpose to demonstrate anti-hegemony which delineates as the refusal to give permission to all that is wrong, encourage the knowledge of different cultures, and oppose to a single powerful group from ruling the system (Stand, 2014). Informing Canadian’s on racial profiling is a great start to raising consciousness, however knowledge is not everything. Knowledge without answers is only awareness and in order to change racial profiling individuals need direction. Perhaps OHRC could present a new report with answers to end racial profiling or at least where to begin, because with proper guidance racial profiling can be modified and destroyed.
In 1990, there was a total of 2,245 murders in New York, but over the past nine years, this total has been less than 600 (NYCLU). However, there has not been evident proof that the stop-and-frisk procedure is the reason of the declination of the crime rate. Indeed, stop-and-frisk contributes to some downturn of crime but the number is not high enough for the citizen and police to rely on. Specifically, only 3% of 2.4 million stops result in conviction. Some 2% of those arrests – or 0.1% of all stops – led to a conviction for a violent crime. Only 2% of arrests led to a conviction for possession of a weapon (Gabatt, A., 2013). In other words, the decrease in crime due to stop-and-frisk is mostly due to the discovery of possessed of weapons. Therefore, stop-and- frisk is not an effective procedure to use because it does not represent a huge impact in people’s safety (Gabatt, A., 2013). The author has done research about how police base their initiation towards the procedure of stop-and-frisk. Researchers have found that stop-and-frisk is a crime prevention strategy that gives a police officer the permission to stop a person based on “reasonable suspicion” of criminal activity and frisk based on “reasonable suspicion” that the person is armed and dangerous. This controversy is mainly because of racial profiling. “Reasonable suspicion” was described by the court as “common sense” (Avdija, A., 2013). Although, the
The New York City Police Department enacted a stop and frisk program was enacted to ensure the safety of pedestrians and the safety of the entire city. Stop and frisk is a practice which police officers stop and question hundreds of thousands of pedestrians annually, and frisk them for weapons and other contraband. Those who are found to be carrying any weapons or illegal substances are placed under arrest, taken to the station for booking, and if needed given a summons to appear in front of a judge at a later date. The NYPD’s rules for stop and frisk are based on the United States Supreme Courts decision in Terry v. Ohio. The ruling in Terry v. Ohio held that search and seizure, under the Fourth Amendment, is not violated when a police officer stops a suspect on the street and frisks him or her without probable cause to arrest. If the police officer has a “reasonable suspicion that the person has committed, is committing, or is about to commit a crime” and has a reasonable belief that the person "may be armed and presently dangerous”, an arrest is justified (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, at 30).
"Stop and Frisk." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law. Ed. Donna Batten. 3rd ed. Vol. 9. Detroit: Gale, 2010. 391-392. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 5 Nov. 2013.
The purpose of stop and search, an investigative tool to prevent crime is arguably different to the current practice of this procedure, current research suggests that it is used to gain intelligence and for social control (Bowling and Phillip, 2007). Following this, there is substantial evidence suggesting that thirty police forces have no understanding of how to use their powers to complete a stop and search (HMIC, 2013). Furthermore, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984, c60) states that a police officer can only stop and search a citizen if they have reasonable grounds to suspect they have stolen or prohibited items on their person. However, statistical evide...
Spalek and Imtoual (2007) state that in the aftermath of September 11, 2001 and the following of subsequent terrorist attacks in the UK and Europe, there has been a shift of focus on black minorities to Asian minorities and as a result there has been an increased surveillance amongst Asian and Muslim minority groups. Since the year 2000, numerous contemporary anti-terror laws have been instated the law affecting minority groups the most being most influential the Terrorism Act 2000. The Terrorism Act 2000 affected minority groups by enhancing police powers to investigate terrorism, including wider stop and search powers, and the power to detain suspects after arrest for up to 14 days. (Spalek and Imtoual, 2007). As a result, statistics in Britain in 2002-2003, sugested that under counter-terrorism legislation, stop and searches carried out amongst Asian minorities increased by 302% in a year, in which Hare and Weinstein (2010, p.483) in their literary research on democracy, state that the Muslim Council of Britain claimed that the police are misusing their new enhanced powers and
One discriminating practice used by police officers is racial profiling. This is the police practice of stopping, questioning, and searching potential criminal suspects in vehicles or on the street based solely on their racial appearance (Human Rights Watch, 2000). This type of profiling has contributed to racially disproportionate drug arrests, as well as, arrests for other crimes. It makes sense that the more individuals police stop, question and search, the more people they will find with reason for arrest. So, if the majority of these types of stop and frisk searches are done on a certain race then it makes sense that tha...
Policing in Canada is much different from many other nations due to the rich cultural diversity that Canada is blessed with having. The discussion on policing in a multicultural society must be viewed as a much more political question on how to respond to diversity (Ben-Porat, 2007). Policing has a problem when minority groups feel alienated from the Police or when they feel that the police are enforcing discriminating policies and unjust laws (Ben-Porat, 2007). There are many examples in Canada of racial biases on the side of the police. Recently the RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson made a public address acknowledging racial bias in Canadian Policing (Ireland, 2016). Unfortunately, credibility and legitimacy of the police among different minority groups in Canada has yet to be met due to these groups feeling that they have been unfairly treated (Ben-Porat, 2007). Most police agencies in Canada now have some form of diversity training relating to specific minority groups. Another thing that some of Canadas police agencies have done
In the article “Point: Racial Profiling in Law Enforcement is Unjust”, Adele Cassola determines that racial profiling is an extensive problem in policing across Canada. She identifies that racial profiling is based on stereotypes of race, ethnicity, and cultural background with African-Canadians, Arab-Canadians, and Aboriginal Canadians being targeted most frequently. Racial profiling is not unique to law enforcement and immigration, Cassola asserts, “it is a wide spread problem within other institutions and establishments as well” (2009). She discovered a survey that showed Toronto's African-Canadian secondary school students were stopped four times more frequently and searched six times more frequently than their non-black classmates. In an article from the Toronto Star newspaper in 2002, Cassola notes that African-Canadians were subject...
Both of these articles were focused on the Strategy of Policing, but the author’s approaches to the ‘hot topics,’ couldn’t be more difficult. Williams and Murphy focused on the different eras of policing, and how the racial conflicts have overlapped policing efforts. Whereas, Kelling and Moore focused on how police have evolved with the eras. The articles were dramatically different, however, the policing eras: Political, Reform, and Community Orientated eras were influenced largely as the main focuses for each academic article.
Tanovich, D. M. (2006). The colour of justice: Policing race in Canada. Toronto, Ontario: Irwin Law.
Skogan, W., Meares, T. (2004) ‘Lawful Policing’ The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 66 (18)
In the 1980’s legal tension involving police searches was a direct result of the war on drugs campaign. Officers were encouraged to stop and seize or search suspicious vehicles to put a halt on drug trafficking (Harns, 1998). But placing this aggressive approach into effect had many negative outcomes. One problem was that it put police on a thin line with the constitutional laws. To no surprise, pretty much no data estimating how often police searches fall outside constitutional laws exist. Only cases that catch the courts attention are logged into the record books. A case study held in “Middleberg” on suspect searches reports that 70 of the 86 searches didn’t result in arrest; citations weren’t presented nor were any charges filed. Just about all of the unconstitutional searches, 31 out of 34, weren’t reported to the courts, nor were they intended to be reported.