Resent and Tension in Communities, the Downside

The stop and frisk policy is aimed at getting weapons off the street, high crime streets. Although that's a good aim, a good intention, the plain truth of the matter is that the majority of civilians, including the youth, in "high crime" minority areas are not armed. I can say that, because, I know that most people are not violent gun possessing offenders; even I've been a victim to this violation of rights, and I wasn't in possession of a firearm and never have been. This must be obvious to police too, if they know the the stats and they have to, that 4% of all these " stops and frisks" led to an arrest. If you've stopped over half a million people in certain areas of a city and have only made 4% arrests, that must tell something to the police force. And when a person is stopped and is unarmed and innocent it just brings about a feeling of hostility towards the police as a whole not just one officer, because of the people knowing that the good and bad cops overuse their authority with this tactic and aggression, and that just builds social tension and personal tension with people in the communities and police. In an independent survey conducted by myself the results were no surprise, they are as follows:



82.4% of People between the ages of 16-19 said that they would feel hostility or tension towards police officers if stopped and questioned while being unarmed. 82.4% of the people that answered yes also said they lived in crime burdened neighborhoods. 17.6% of people surveyed said they would feel no hostility or tension, most of those that said no lived in areas unburdened by crime.

My point again the more the police stop and question civilians in crime burdened areas is the more they build the tension between the police and community members. The police need to do more observation and less initiation, to reduce the tension that is building very fast, a tension that will not help their crime fighting efforts, and quite possibly undermine them. Whats more important, trying to get guns off the street in a bad neighborhood with no reason and only racial profiling, with the people against you; or actually getting guns off the street with more observation ,and less initiation, violate the bad guys and not the good guys with the people for you and making your job easier.



"Stop & Frisk" Report - Chapter 2, Part 1
Stop and Frisk – Who's Being Searched? (Gotham Gazette, October 9, 2007)