Everyone has heard of the Stop and Frisk program in
History: The Stop and Frisk program came out of the attacks of September 11, 2001. The idea was to prevent other terrorist threats from happening on soft targets like the subways and in tourist traps like time square. Later the program was copied by other law enforcement agencies due to its effectiveness as it not only deterred terrorism, but other crime as well. In fact the program in its first years confiscated numerous illegally obtained weapons and drugs. As a result, crime has gone down.
Controversy: What the argument is about is race. Even though the searches are in general random, the stop and frisk program in black communities has been deemed raciest. However it is not raciest in the first place, it was simply the fact that disproportionately black men were being caught will illegal drugs and guns. As such the black community felt as if they were being targeted.
On top of this, the program itself is deemed unconstitutional. As it violates the requirement that police need to have a warrant to conduct a search. Therefore, if at any time the program is brought before the courts questioning its constitutionality, it would fail.
What’s to be done: Well for some, they want the program to be eliminated. They of course say this due to the "racism" and how it is unconstitutional. But there is a good solution. That is for the officer to use police techniques to decide if the person is first worth calling over. That means looking at the persons clothing and items from afar and asking to themselves, is that what a terrorist or a criminal would wear or is that how a regular person would behave. From there the officer would question the person to see if they have reason to want to search that person’s bag. In short, the officer would chit chat with the individual long enough to know if that person could be a potential threat to society. If the person is deemed OK through the casual conversation, then the person may move along fine. However, if the person shows signs of stress or other symptoms of wanting to escape the officers questions (outside of wanting to get to work) the officer will ask to search their bags. Key word is "ask." This eliminates the unconstitutional element completely from the equation for if the person submits to the search then it is voluntary and thus no warrant is required. The individual is still free to refuse, but most will not because they know that they will then become suspect in the eyes of the police. Also, if carried out this way it would still deter crime. Basically this is how Stop, Question and Frisk will work.
Conclusion: Most of the time the Stop and Frisk program works as described in “the what’s to be done” section of today's issue. Police generally don’t want to interfere with people’s daily lives. However, most people don't actually realize that. People want it gone partly because it is an inconvenience and because of the number of African American Men being caught with illegal paraphernalia. Truth is the program just needs a re-branding to keep up with the general populace who don't pay attention because let's face it; they just want to go about their daily lives unhindered. I like the re-branding of the program and the methodology behind it as people will feel less like criminals being asked about their daily routine. I don't know what to do with the whole racial element as that is something the black community has to address when it comes to their kids, and male adults.
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