Pros And Cons Of The Stop And Frisk

Even though the Stop and Frisk program was a highly controversial law, a revised version of it should be implemented in every major city that suffers from high crime rates. The majority of people wanted the program to continue because it worked very well in NYC and It drastically reduced the number of murders and major crime in the city. First, In this essay, I will elaborate on what I mean by “a revised version” of the Stop and Frisk program, address the arguments made against the law, and then show you my argument for the program and the good it brought to the city of NYC and the good it can bring to other cities in America.

First off, what was the Stop and Frisk program? The Stop and Frisk program is the practice of detaining, questioning

I don’t think it gives too much power, but instead gives the police officers conducting these stops a sense of pride or superiority. If the cops didn't have as much authority as they do and couldn't stop people when they wanted to then that's a life that was probably lost because that person could have had a weapon or drugs. If the cops didn't have as much authority that person with a gun could probably be on the way to do something, but it couldn't have been stopped because the cop would have had to probably go through a long process just for having a suspicion. The Stop-and-Frisk policy is just like being pulled over on the road. All an officer needs to pull you over is suspicion. I've heard of people being pulled over just because they have a similar car to a car involved in a crime close to that area, but it wasn’t even the same make of

Despite all the controversy about the policy being racist towards African Americans and Hispanics it actually reduced the murder rate in NYC. From the early 1990’s to 2013 the number of murders declined by almost 80% and the number of major crimes dropped by 75%. New York City was also dubbed the safest city in America, and that ultimately was the goal of the NYPD. Sure, most of the people stopped were innocent, but the stops that were successful in finding weapons or drugs probably saved a lot more lives later down the road even probably including the person stopped. Because of this program, 66,000 weapons were confiscated. In the first half of 2015, the number of stops dramatically diminished and the number of homicides increased by 20% and it was the first time in 20 years gun crime increased two consecutive years.

My last support for why we should continue the Stop and Frisk policy is that it benefits everyone. Like I said earlier, the NYPD goes to neighborhoods that are predominantly African American or Hispanic, but not all the residents of these neighborhoods are criminals. So when we apprehend people from the Stop and frisks, we are taking them out of these neighborhoods and leaving the law-abiding citizens that pay taxes and don't break the law. Also, the NYPD is the most diverse police department in the country, so most of the police officers conducting these searches are minorities