As Peter Hart has pointed out (FAIR Blog, 2/25/13, 8/20/13), there’s a lot of misinformation coming from the media on the unconstitutional police strategy known as stop-and-frisk. There’s a powerful urge to believe, it seems, that abusing the Fourth Amendment rights of young men of color somehow makes the rest of us safer.
Take the New York Times‘ write-up today (8/23/13) of the passage of two bills opposed to stop-and-frisk by the New York City Council. Reporter J. David Goodman provided this historical context to the debate:
New York has by far the largest police department in the country, and its crime drop has been bigger and more sustained than in most other major cities. As a result, the contentious debate over how the police conduct stops has been closely followed.
At the heart of the issue is a debate about just how effective the stop-and-frisk policy is. A standard policing practice, police stops ballooned over the last decade as crime fell.
When you have one paragraph talking about how New York City’s “crime drop has been bigger and more sustained” followed by one that refers to something happening “over the last decade as crime fell,” the reader is naturally going to assume that the last decade is when the city had its big, sustained crime drop. But that’s completely wrong.
As you can see from the accompanying chart, the big drop in New York City’s homicide rate began not 10 years ago but 23 years ago—in 1990, the year Mayor David Dinkins took office. The sharp decline continued until 1998, beginning a more gradual and tentative downward trend, interrupted in 2001 by the major spike of the September 11 attacks.
Stop-and-frisk became a major police tactic starting in 2003, the year after Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office and brought in Ray Kelly as his police commissioner. Its impact on the course of New York City’s crime rate is not perceptible to the naked eye.
But we couldn’t have been subjecting hundreds of thousands of innocent young black and Latino men to random humiliation for no good reason, could we? It’s a question corporate media would rather not answer.
The laws that are sprouting up all over the country that have these blatant overtones to them are reminiscent of the Jim Crow laws of yesterday.It is a insurmountable waste of human ingenuity and progress that we spend so much time on something as useless as the suppression of mankind.The color game serves the designs of the oligarchs who use these forms of manipulation to rule and oppress.The time is now for learned and decent people to educate.Each one teach one……..because if this sort of thing,along with other methods of deception are allowed to continue unchecked,we are all in for a very bitter awakening.While these kind of distractions are happening our country is preparing to invade another country in the name of Americans,with the probable results of a nuclear Holocaust,also there is a uncontainable radiation waste leak that is poisoning our entire planet and the attention we are giving these things are nil,public and press.Our attention is with something fabricated to distract and divide.I humbly apologize for getting a little bit of topic,but for the love of God how many times and how long, do we stifle the growth of humanity with mundane things and give our undivided attention to BS……………
Hay “Stop and Frisk” works to keep polar bears away from New York, notice the decline in polar bears in New York? I would have said none, but that wouldn’t have taken into account the Zoos.
This post cites the homicide rate as evidence that stop and frisk has not reduced crime in NYC. Not supporting the policy but would like to see crime rate statistics. Seems like Fair is pulling its own bait and switch.
@ Glenn – Ray Kelly has cvlaimed that Stop and Frisk has “saved lives” and, in a leading question by David Gregory, suggested that people would die if the program were halted. This invocation of mortality makes it directly relevant to the homicide rate above all other crimes (ala marijuana, which most Americans support the decriminalization of).
There’s also a powerful urge to believe, it seems, that abusing the Fourth Amendment rights of internet users somehow fights terrorism. Many (most recently Frank Rich in New York Magazine) like to claim that people don’t care about privacy, but notice how no one wants to put it to a vote? If no one cares, why not pass a constitutional amendment? Why worry about letting these apathetic citizens read the legal interpretation allowing such data collection? Because the last poll I saw on the issue said that most people still thought Snowden was a whistleblower. Frank Rich thinks he’s a Jedi or something.
Peter have you listened to the men….the Police on the street?Or are you relying on half baked graphs that say whatever you want them to say?Ask the police, or the thousands ,and thousands of men arrested with illegal firearms if it is working.Look at police arms storage lockers with 20 000 weapons in evidence if it has saved one life.And isnt that the lefts usual argument.If we save one life by enacting sweeping gun control, was it not worth it?One life…..well except in the case of abortions.But I digress.Then you go to the constitutionality.Ha- something you only use when it is to your advantage.Or its racism to realize 98% of all violent crime is young black men in New york.Notice not old black men or women …or children.When police look at white collar crime that has cost this country billions -do they go to mom and pop stores in Harlem ….or Wall street where the lilly whites hang out?Damn racists.Damn profiler’s.I am so sick of people profiling every white guy in a 2000 dollar suit, driving a Bentley ,and living in the Hamptons who used to work for Barney Madoff.Go bother the chinese kids working in the Chi wa resturant.The probably have your three million dollars.Are we really this stupid.Look this program works.Now we have to make it constitutional in every sense.And the black community that is suffering the most from black on black crime has got to realize it is no ones fault but the criminals for the scrutiny being given young black males in high crime district.
Sometimes it is stupid to argue statistics since one can make any case possible. If stop and frisk worked (and it is reasonable to assume that it does), it would still be violation of persons rights to be harrased on the street by police without justification.
Mirza in that I agree that there are inherent problems in this program constitutionally.If we for instance stopped 1000 men in a high crime area and found 500 guns….even if all the cases were thrown out could we assume through case law, that a case has been proven for probable cause?My point is don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.I think detector wands ,and dogs could give that probable cause.Then the laws governing catching a man with an unlicensed gun should be maximized.
Gee, confiscated guns (from .1% of stops) sure save lives. I wonder how many lives would be saved from, I dunno, some kind of Gun Trafficking legislation, perhaps something like NY’s Kirsten Gillibrand has introduced multiple times (but shut down by NRA-supported congressmen) that would end the “iron pipeline”, which supplies the vast majority of illegal weapons to urban areas. Ooops, sorry. Common sense has intervened on another national soap opera.
Janson it is a far stretch to use terms like gun trafficking.Gun sales do you mean?Because certainly the NRA has never backed “illegal’ gun sales.You are trying to change words here to own the argument(a liberal game)Stop and frisk works in high crime areas because that is where the violent(gun) crime is.If you practiced stop and frisk outside Amish houses of worship for instance….you would soon see it is a waste of time and resources.
mike e – you’re not as stupid as your punctuation suggests. You’re just dishonest. The facts are that most guns used in crime can be traced back to sales in ten states with lax laws for gun purchases
http://www.economist.com/node/17151375
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_violence_and_gun_control_in_Texas
Michael, state exists for the benefit of people. You don’t turn a neighborhood into a jail for safety reasons.Democracy is based on the idea that people are sovereign, have inalienable rights and are created equal. You do not take away rights for safety and convenience.
Additionally there are problems in your assumptions. For one, policeman are not polite butlers that gently pat you. They can be sadists that abuse the power given to them over citizens. They can be racist and prejudiced. Often times police lie and violate your rights. For a better explanation of what I am talking about watch daily show segment on this topic.
Janson Texas is a fantastic state.They do so much right that it really is a waste of breath to try to attack them.If you are trying to say that guns used in crimes originate in the states and with the people ,who exercise their second amendment rights- Im at a loss.People with legal guns(gun permit) only account for 1% of the crime.So what twist you are trying to pull off of the stats I can’t even fathom.Do you mean stolen guns from legal gun owners account for gun crime?What is the point of that stat?And Mirza….I am a tea party constitutionalist.I don’t want to take away peoples rights.But I also don’t want criminals to use our own laws to kill us.That is why i say flood the streets with dogs and this new “wand” that can be used to detect firearms.Both would meet legal standards for stop and frisk through probable cause.Till then and more importantly until these communities start exercising control over their young men there will be a lot of mis communication, and excess on the part of the police, who will often err on the side of caution in simply trying to stay alive in this war zone.It really becomes a matter of intelligence and common sense for an officer.He sees three young men standing in a dark alley.He want to speak to them to see what they are up to.He frisks them to make sure he is safe while he speaks to them.Two guns are found.Now Im sure some lawyer will pump out a case on that.To me it is simple horse sense.You say Police abuse people.That is always wrong.What Im asking is do you want to give Police in some fashion the ability to remove these guns from the streets and these young men?
Michael, how can you claim that you are constitutionalist and yet tear down the fourth amendment. Fourth amendment was put in place specifically because during colonial times Brits had a ‘writ of assistance’ which is a search warrant to search anyone suspicious which is exactly what is done now in NYC’s stop and frisk.
Fourth amendment specifically states that: “…no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. ”
Using dogs and wands and technology to search someone is still a search.
To say that you don’t want criminals to use our laws against us or to imply that community needs to do this and that does not make any sense. Your rights do not disappear just because someone suspects you to be a criminal or because your community is not doing enough.
On the other hand, it is not clear that second amendment does give people right to own weapons. The whole “organized militia” part of the second amendment seems to indicate that the right to bear arms is the right of states to organize militias to protect against the abuse of Federal government.
And police can bully people and violate their rights. Just go to youtube and watch about police brutality.