Stop And Frisk Research Paper

Words: 2408
Pages: 10

“Black Americans are 3.23 times more likely than white Americans to be killed by police” (Harvard). These statistics prove that racism is still a problem that America struggles with. In this country, it is said that police are here to “serve and protect” and according to Title 6 of the Civil Rights Act, “It is illegal for state and local police officers to discriminate based on race, color, national origin, gender, and religion.” This law has been broken time and time again by several different officers who, many of whom, didn’t even have consequences to face. Abuse of power has been evident throughout history and is still a popular topic today. Historically, the government and police have been very abusive and unfair to African Americans. …show more content…
Blacks and whites couldn’t even co-exist. There were a lot of issues with police beating and harassing African Americans during this time. In the 20th century, racial minorities, specifically middle aged African American citizens, were targeted through a legal practice known as stop and frisk without probable cause. Stop and frisk is a practice that the police use in order to detain someone, which is considered a temporary arrest. This practice is supposedly used when an officer has “reasonable suspicion” to believe that someone was, is, or was about to be involved in some criminal activity. Imagine a young black male walking home from work late at night, wearing a hoodie and jeans. All of the sudden, he gets stopped by a police officer who suspects “suspicious behavior”. The officer then detains him and pats him down, the man is then released after the officer’s search was unsuccessful. Imagine how humiliating and singled out this man feels (Stop and Frisk). Because of this, the use of stop and frisk has been cut back by many police departments because it is ineffective at stopping crime and cops single out people of color for no valid