On August 12th 2013, a New York City judge, Shira A. Scheindlin, ruled that the New York City Police Department’s (NYPD) policy, stop-and-frisk, is unconstitutional. Stop-and-frisk is a policy that allows police officers to stop people they deem suspicious. They are permitted to frisk them in search for illegal items such as weapons and/or drugs. Since Mayor Bloomberg introduced stop-and-frisk to the city it has been very controversial. The reason the policy is so controversial is that data shows that most stops targeted young black and Hispanic men. This is an example of racial profiling
Judge Scheindlin determined that the constitutional rights of the some of the city’s black and ...view middle of the document...
In reality, there are many things that can cause a pocket to bulge.
Judge Scheindlin seemed very concerned about people’s rights and feelings after being stopped. She described each stop as, “a demeaning and humiliating experience”. In fact, statistics showed that 90% of the people who were stopped-and-frisked were completely innocent.
Since stop-and-frisk first made the news it has been a popular topic of discussion in my family. Also, I have followed it in the news and discussed with a variety of people. In my opinion, stop-and-frisk unfairly targets African American and Latino citizens of NYC and needs to be greatly reformed. Even though I’ve never been stopped, as a New Yorker anything that happens in the city I care about. Also, my uncle is an ACLU lawyer in the racial justice division. To find out more information for this research project, I called him and asked him for a quote about his opinion on the developments. He said that, “The stop-and-frisk policy that Judge Scheindlin ruled unconstitutional was fundamentally unfair and inconsistent with the constitution because it treated some New Yorkers as second class citizens. Discriminatory policing is always wrong and is also bad police work because it alienates impacted communities from the police...
