REACHING A MIDDLE On August 9, 2014,

IN STOP AND FRISK in Ferguson Missouri,

Michael Brown was an

African-American teenager who was shot multiple times for allegedly robbing a store.

Even though he repeatedly put his arms in the air to surrender the police officer continued

shoot and ended Michael Browns life. It turned out Michael Brown was unarmed and not

responsible for the crime he allegedly committed. In the first three quarters of 2016

(January September), New Yorkers were stopped by the police 10,171 times [and]

7,758 were totally innocent (76 percent) (Larry Buchanan, Ford Fessenden, K.K.

Rebecca Lai, Haeyoun Park, Alicia Parlapiano, Archie Tse, Tim Wallace, Derek Watkins

and Karen Yourish). Fifty-four of these victims were black and twenty-nine percent were

Latino, while only ten percent were white. Unfortunately, Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner,

Sandra Bland, and many others have similar stories and are victims of this program. Stop

and Frisk is a program that originated in New York and allows police officers to

temporarily detain somebody and pat down their outer clothing when there are specific

articulable facts leading a reasonable police officer to believe a person is armed and

dangerous.

Stop and Frisk is an issue because it is a disguise for racial profiling. According to

Judge Shira Scheindlin of Federal District Court in New York, She found that the city

had been deliberately indifferent to police officers illegally detaining and frisking

minority residents on the streets over many years(qtd. The Editorial Board). The Stop

and Frisk program only occurs in high-crime areas that are typically urban

neighborhoods. African-Americans and other people of color feel trapped because of this
truth. Regardless of these flaws, Stop and Frisk does contribute to society by playing a

part to preventing some crimes. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has long argued the

stop-and-frisk program is the most effective way to get guns off the street, and credits the

program for helping to drive down the citys murder rate, which has plummeted 77

percent to record lows since 1990(Jill Colvin). So how can Stop and Frisk still

benefit society without racially profiling citizens?

We can start with a policy change. This policy change will require police officers

to conduct Stop and Frisk in all areas. An analogy was stated, If you want to catch fish,

you have to go where the fish are(qtd. Paul Larkin), and this

was compared to street crime. The belief is that Stop and

Frisk must only be conducted in urban neighborhoods.

Massey and Dented stated in An Analysis of the New York

City Police Departments Stop-and-Frisk policy in the

context of claims of racial bias, that because high-crime areas often have high

concentrations of minority citizens this logic places minority neighborhoods at risk for

elevating the suspiciousness of their residents (qtd. Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, and

Alex kiss). However, this quote is implying that people in one neighborhood are all up to

no good. Unlike fish, people vary and ones location should not make them a target for

Stop and Frisk. Judge Shira Scheindlin also stated that, There is no basis for assuming

that an innocent population shares the same characteristics as the criminal suspect

population in the same area (qtd. The Editorial Board).

 The goal of this policy is to maintain safety on the streets of all neighborhoods

and to avoid racial profiling simultaneously. Also, one of Stop and Frisks contributions

to society is to stop people with illegal weapons. Specific areas would include big cities,

small cities, and suburban areas regardless of the racial demographics or crime rates. One

may argue that searching in a low crime neighborhood is unnecessary or a waste of time.

Though crime occurs in a variety of areas in the United States. In conducting criminal

operations, gang members in urban areas often travel to suburban locations to engage in

criminal activity and then return to their home locations(Brian Walsh). So it will still be

beneficial for police to conduct Stop and Frisk in suburban areas that typically have lower

crime rates than the city. In order to avoid racial profiling but maintain benefits of Stop

and Frisk, this is the best option. With this new policy, police officers would be able to

arrest more people who are up to no good in a fairer way.