What is discretion? Discretion is the availability of a choice of options or actions one can take in a situation. Police officers have to make an instantaneous decision when they are in a situation. It all depends on the scenario for them to decide whether they want to use deadly force, stop and frisk or writing traffic summons etc. Stop question and frisk are the practiced by which a police officer initiates a stop of an individual on the street allegedly based on reasonable suspicion of criminal activity. Stop question and frisk became effective on July 1, 1964. Three scholarly that I 've used for my research are " 1964, The Right to Investigate and New York 's "Stop and Frisk" Law" by John Ronayne, "1968, Stop and Frisk (A case study in …show more content…
2005, An Analysis of the NYPD 's stop and frisk policy in the context of the claim of racial bias by Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, Alex Kiss is about the NYPD records of indicated that they were stopping black and Hispanics more often that they were stopping whites. Minorities are stopped twice as often for violent crimes and a weapons offense. Lower "hit rates" for non-whites is suggested as the targeting of minorities while another suggests dynamics of racial stereotyping and a more passive form of racial preference. Racial Incongruity stops in high rates of minority stop in predominantly white precincts. Being out of place is often a reason for suspicion. According to An Analysis of the NYPD 's stop and frisk policy in the context of the claim of racial bias by Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, and Alex Kiss, “Racial incongruity stops are most prominent in racially homogenous areas” (18). Black and Hispanics represented 51% and 33% of the stops. According to An Analysis of the NYPD 's stop and frisk policy in the context of the claim of racial bias by Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, Alex Kiss, " Black and Hispanics represent only 26% and 24% of New York population"(19) Black and Hispanics were stopped more often …show more content…
After doing my research with these three articles I 've come to a conclusion that stops question and frisk is very effective. As much as it does not reduce crime it provides a sense of safety to the officer when he stops the pursuant. A police officer should have a reasonable suspicion to stop and frisk his pursuant. According to the article, The right to investigate and New York "Stop and Frisk" law " Mere suspicion is not enough but the knowledge and experience gained by trained officers should be considered by the court in determining if there was a reasonable caused"(235). According to Stop and Frisk (A Case Study in Judicial Control of the Police) by Herman Schwartz, " the power to search, the New York "stop and frisk" statutes provides temporary questioning of a person in public places search for a weapon"(434). An officer has the right to stop an individual in public if he has a reasonable doubt of suspicion to temporary stop and frisks the individual. The statistic has shown that many officers have targeted the minorities in the stop and frisk. According to An Analysis of the NYPD 's stop and frisk policy in the context of the claim of racial bias by Andrew Gelman, Jeffrey Fagan, Alex Kiss " the number of arrests of each group in the previous year black were stopped 23% and Hispanics 39% more often than whites"(19). Minorities are stopped twice as often for violent crimes and a