This short video (3:51) presents data of stop-and-frisks in an interactive, visual format:
This video was created by the really amazing Morris Justice Project. The Morris Justice Project brings together people affected by the NYPD policing practices together with academic researchers to resist criminalization in new ways. This map is just one of those ways.
The Morris Justice Project is an initiative that is part of the Public Science Project at the Graduate Center, CUNY. You can follow updates on the Floyd case at the Morris Justice Project Tumblr, and on Twitter, @public_science.
The stop and frisk program is proof of the racism and prejudice that is still going on in the world today. The police are using racial profiling as the basis for finding their victims of the stop and frisk program. Minority groups, more specifically black men, are being harassed by police for no reason other than driving while black. “Stop and frisk” is discrimination in its purest form, but yet it is legal and considered to be a way of bettering NYC. The statistics are not proving that this program is working, yet police continue to do it on an everyday basis. The fact that 88% of the victims of “stop and frisk” are innocent and/or dismissed of any charges brought against them should say something in itself. The police of NYC are basically stereotyping black men and other minority groups and performing hate crimes against them with the permission of the government. The government is looking for someone to blame for the crimes in NYC and African American men are their scapegoats. What they fail to realize is that the actions they are taking to prevent crime is actually making it worse. Eventually what is going to happen is these minority groups that are being “stopped and frisked” are going to succumb to these self-fulfilling prophecies. Wanting to reduce the crime rates in NYC is completely understandable, but using racial profiling, stereotypes, discrimination, and scapegoating is the wrong way to do so.
The stop and frisk program in my opinion is a waste of time, money and energy being put on by the New York Police Department. Statistically shown, there is not a whole lot of good coming out of this program. The police department is wasting their time on targeting people who they THINK are bad. Systemic racism is a theory that can be applied to this video because the NYPD are stereotyping different races solely by what they look like. An example would be if an African American was wearing a baggy hoody and walking on the sidewalk, a NY police officer will partake in their stop and frisk program and pull over to interrogate that African American. When in reality, all that person was trying to do was go home after a long day of school or something like that. They have no idea if that person is just carrying on their day, crime free or if they are waiting for a drug deal on the other side of the street. I feel that we shouldn’t live our lives always thinking badly of people. Not everyone is cruel in this world, regardless of what they look like. If the NYPD were to ban this stop and frisk program, I feel that their actual crime rate would decrease, many more arrests would be made and the streets would be safer.
One of the theories of Prejudice can be applied here is the Normative approach. The Normative Approach takes the view that Prejudice is influenced by societal norms and situations that encourage or discourage the tolerance of minorities. Here for the stop-and-frisk program, which can just only be determined by behaviors and how a person looks, this theory can explain the pattern of these stops. These stops may or may not be a result of overt discrimination, but the pattern traced out in the video show us that police only stop-and-frisk at certain area of the city, which is strongly an evidence and a result of prejudice (thought), that lead to the act of discrimination (action). The polices’ view of some certain people are influenced by societal norms and situations. In the video, we learn that the majority of these stop (79%) target men of color. Such data doesn’t make sense since the crime rate of the city is decreasing while the stop state is increasing, with a majority of them being men of colors. The Normative approach theory explain this racial profiling practice by pointing out that these polices’ activities and their point of view is highly influence by society, and society in turn is racist as it assigns certain quality and characteristics to certain groups of people: men of color, LGBT community, immigrants,… As thought as being one of the most liberal states in the U.S., such data point out that the practice of racial profiling allow discrimination to exist. These acts not only cause trouble to the people that were stopped, but also is a waste of time and money of NY Government.
I am appalled to see how many Americans were actually stopped and frisked on a day to day basis or even an hour to hour basis.Most of the new yorkers that were stopped had done nothing.Can you imagine being a regular member of their community walking home and being stopped for no reason to be frisked by the police because of the way you look? Most of these people were not disturbing any one but simply just doing what they do every day.Imagine the effect that this causes on the kids of these neighborhoods or surrounding areas.Seeing people you know or your loved ones being stopped by the authority’s for no reason.What does this go to show these kids? what are we teaching them? One of the theories that applies to this would be labeling. Police are basically labeling these new yorkers or these people of color as to doing so much wrong or being bad people when they have done nothing and therefor do not deserve the treatment that they are receiving.
As sad as it is, many places besides New York City are being unfairly treated by police officers. In sociology we learn this termed as racial profiling. Racial profiling is any arbitrary police-initiated action based on race, ethnicity, or natural origin rather than a person’s behavior. In the video we learned that the majority of the stops that they posted as 79% of police stops target black males. With all of these points made clear in the video one can come to the conclusion that New York City police officers are taking a very ‘normative approach.’ The normative approach is the view that prejudice is influenced by societal norms and situations that encourage or discourage the tolerance of minorities. Whether is program will help and stop just prejudice happening by the second only time will tell. As far as New York City communities, they should focus on the programs that work is working and stop putting efforts in to the programs that are obviously not working.
This video is both shocking and sobering. This is the reality in which most people live in every day. Acts of racial profiling are committed by authoritative figures each and every day. However, the majority of these acts go unnoticed by people in the white community, a direct result of white privilege I assume. Even so, the statistics in this clip are hard to refute. We have 88% of the “stop and frisks” being executed on innocent people. Worse still, 79% of the stops were targeting men of color, essentially for driving while black. This demonstrates perfectly that racism is still very much alive in today’s society, as if there was any doubt. It also makes you wonder what else the time, funds, and manpower could be used towards. Possibly stopping an actual crime, or catching a real “bad guy”. The stop and frisk program is founded on solid ideas, but probable cause has certainly been overlooked in some cases.
Being a CJ major, hearing about stop and frisks is nothing new, but seeing this video and the numbers is a bit shocking. New York is one of the top cities where crime happens, so I can understand why police stop and frisk so many citizens. Although, I never would have thought the number would be so high. Statistics do show that people living in low income neighborhoods, African Americans, Hispanics and certain female get the most attention from the police. People need to also understand that the officers are doing their job. I’m not saying that every person of color is a criminal or the location of where you live makes you a criminal. I do believe that some officers jump to conclusions and automatically assume that certain groups are criminal but not all officers are that way. Racism is still very common regardless of the area you live in and hopefully it does get controlled a bit more as time progresses because we cannot keep living in a society where people attack one another because of race, religion, or color.
I know that the NYPD will say that they’re doing this to clean the streets up and make it a safer place. However, this is rediculous and is not the correct way to do it. They proved that just under 90 percent of all stop and frisks nothing is wrong and the citizen is let go. They also proved that almost 80 percent of stops are colored males, this tells you that racism is still very much an issue. This could be compared to normative approach. NYPD is racial profiling and ultimately stereotyping against all colored males for being a criminal of some sort. You could apply systemic theory to this due to the stereotyping. One of their excuses is to find illegal weapons and drugs, yet only 1 percent of all stop and frisks makes an arrest due to weapons. This is a poor way for the government to spend their money.
This is preposterous. I find it outrageous that this many stops occur daily to no avail. Yes, we need officers to help protect the community and keep us safe however, they are not prevailing with the constant stops. This is also showing discrimination that 80 percent are black males. Black males already have to deal with the stereotype that they are all bad and that they all go to jail but when studies are done most of them aren’t even guilty of doing any wrong. I think this is a poor way of government to spend money and this is authority abuse that the police officers do it.
It is disheartening seeing the map develop as time elapsed. Most of these stops result in nothing other than the spread of negative views of society seeing the majority of these incidents as men of color. This furthers the systemic racism theory that has been passed down for years. The face that more than 80% of these stops are nothing more than time wasted is not okay. It is the job of the police to ensure our streets are safe but this is obviously not the way to go about it. They should focus less on who is driving the car and more on who is breaking the law.