Where did This Come From

When I say, This, I'm talking about the minority association with crime police officers have. Maybe it comes from back in the Jim Crow Days, when the mid-century policemans philosophy was created.
That philosophy being that any black criminals, suspects or any black showing signs of incooperation was to be scolded physically with violent force, and this approach would keep blacks in place and crime low.

In 1951 William Wesley wrote in his observation of the Indian Police that not one white policeman failed to mock the Negro or use somekind of racial slur. From back in the days the "symbolic assailant" was created. Anyone that uses physical signs, certain verbal gestures, or wearing a certain type of clothing has come to be recognized by police as a prelude to crime.

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1745-9133.2007.00422.x?cookieSet=1

Labeling causes Police Prejudice

Police build prejudices based upon experience of labeled minority groups, preferably Black and Latino. The labeling theory says that if you give a person a label for their initial act of deviance they will conform to the requirements that come with the label, therefore going back to the norm or more that they violated in the first place and violating it again, making this the secondary act of deviance. So if for years and years black youth are being brought up in a subculture of mixed types of deviance; and they are running into the law as juveniles, getting off on misdemeanors. Those same juvenile offenders according to the labeling theory will commit felony crimes after that initial misdemeanor offense that gave them the deviant label.

If police happen to realize the overwhelming numbers among the minority community and see who's being labeled what, they're obviously going to come to a prejudgment about blacks and Hispanics without knowing any, the prejudice is formed. And with that prejudice they will hit the streets looking for blacks and hispanics to commit crimes not commiting them, but assuming they will commit them because of that prejudice that has been developed due to labels. So they're going to be out there stopping nearly every not normal minority male they see and who knows what's normal to them.

And in them detaining more youths on petty offenses, giving them labels easier from young. Officers are just training an army from of adult offenders from young. Its like if you tell a kid they're stupid at toddler ages, that kid is going to grow up thinking that they're stupid, because you gave that child the initial label.Government officials need to come up with some alternative for juvenile offenders to avoid prosecuting and labeling them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labeling_theory

Discrimination from the Inside Out

As we know, most negative habits that children acquire are picked up, rather than learned, at home most of the times. For children its from parents and immediate family. For adults on the other hand with jobs with a chain of authority, its what they pick up from their superiors in the job place. For example, if a Captain singles out a minority officer and makes unequal and discriminatory remarks, what can we expect other officers below the chain of command to do; exactly what their commanders and captains do, because they are the immediate parents of the precinct and to rookies they're like little kids in school.

There has been numerous incidents and allegations of what is called "departmental discrimination". You might think for a second that this whole "protected by the blue shield" unwritten code of secrecy that the NYPD stands by would prompt them to treat all people behind this shield equally and brotherly. Some people dream of being police officers their whole lives and then they get there and because of their skin color or nationality they aren't accepted into this family that they've dreamed of being in since child hood, it's extremely ridiculous and disgraceful.

Off duty NYPD Officer Aki Perez, twenty-five years old, of Puerto Rican descent was on his way to his mother's house last year when he was stopped by two undercover narcotics detectives. Nothing was said about whether Officer Perez identified himself as an officer, but if you're an off duty cop and you are stopped by on duty officers, what would you do first? So the detectives searched Officer Perez found no drugs or illegal contraband on him, but still they proceeded to detain Officer Perez. When they took him to the precinct he took a voluntary drug test and passed it and they still proceeded to charge him with loitering and criminal possession of a controlled substance, charges which were later dropped. Officer Perez countered with a 5-million dollar law suit against the NYPD accusing them of maintaining a hostile work environment, conducting unwarranted investigations, and dispensing overly severe disciplinary penalties.

So if an officer is experiencing that first hand from superiors, what do you think he's going to do when he hits the streets full of minorities.

http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/race_class/cops_benson/discrim.htm

Solutions to Ease Tension

As we know there are obviously tensions present in communities with high police presence and minority residents. That tension is caused by the harassment to the people by the police due to the "stop and frisk" policy, a violation that nobody should have to go through. Solutions to these tensions should be less random frisking and more concentrated. Don't stop people on a regular block just cause its dark. Stop people loitering on a busy corner known for drug activity and disorderly conduct. Don't ignore the people standing on the corner and keep driving or keep walking. Loitering is a crime after all, walking on the street is not, freedom of movement.

If police officers picked the right laws to enforce things would be good, because the good guys would go about their business freely and the bad guys will stand out, standing on a corner and going in and out of a building, and be apprehended. More experience officers should conduct stop and frisks if they must be done due to the fact that they have an idea of the people in a neighborhood and how to not make a person feel violated or humiliated. Opposed to sending these rookies out with orders to be aggressive, remember they're rookies, so they're scared as hell. So them being so scared cause them to think about only them and leads them to disrespect the people they're protecting, therefore humiliating and making an innocent person feel violated. The P.D should also consider that 4% number, we think it means something you should too, it means stop and frisk is not producing worthy results. So stop telling them to police aggressive and tell them to look out for specific things, like robberies,murders, rapes, drug transactions and users. All offenses that the city is plagued with, I could imagine the amount of unsolved murders that's just going nowhere and the cops are harassing us instead of getting the rapists murderers and muggers.

Simply do the right things as a Police force and the People would do the right thing and give support to and give respect to the police; which is a very hard to find at this tense hostile time for minority relations with police. You can't just go around violating your supporters, then you just won't have any.

You must Violate Peoples' Rights!

I always like to look up when I'm criticizing any kind of structural organization. Especially government, whenever things have to do with government, there is almost always a chain command present. That means that commands go down the line from the top. Being either the Police Commissioner or the Mayor, all the way to the officer hearing the command from their supervisor and having to carry it out on the streets. I say the Mayor, because the Commissioner is appointed by and takes orders from the Mayor. Commands lead to quotas, numerical production requirements, that must be satisfied or else. There is no direct stop and frisk quota but there is a quota on the stop and frisk reports that are filed, UF-250 forms.

This is very bad because rookies are flooding to the streets with orders to "police aggressively", that is write summonses, make stops, and make arrests. These officers' jobs are getting harder everyday because of the strict orders giving to them to fill their quotas. Its not a win-win for these officers. If they meet the quota, they face more civilian complaints; if they don't make the quota they face poor performance evaluations, reassignment, and even placement in the performance monitoring program that could impair their career and even their personal life.

So now why are minorities harassed so much for real, its not the officers they're only following orders. It must be due to the Head Commander, the Mayor. Keep crime low harass minorities, that sounds like it, I wonder. Still don't let the cops office cause they're doing their job, when we give them a hard time and question them and do not act with compliance we're doing our job, that is taking our rights that we should already have that are slowly disintegrating.



Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn: STOP, QUESTION, FRISK: RACIAL PROFILING AT SEVENTH AVENUE F-TRAIN STATION
PBA Magazine, Summer 2005 | Stop-and-Frisk Quotas: A time bomb ready to explode

Your 4th Amendment Right and the Butchering of it!

We as residents of the United States have rights "guaranteed" to us. The first set of rights, the bill of rights, were the first ten amendments of the U.S Constitution. Specific rights make us feel safe and secure in our everyday lives, like the right to say whatever you want except for threats of crime, and the right to assemble peacefully. All of these make you feel secure but if this one is infringed on legally or not, you will feel some sort of violation. This right is, The Fourth Amendment, the right to be free from unreasonable search and seize, to be reasonable the authorities should have a warrant to search and seize anything unless they have probable cause. Probable cause is the reasonable belief that a crime has been committed and the person being stopped has some kind of involvement in that crime. A seizure has different degrees, a low degree can be when you are stopped and aren't free to leave because the officer is physically stopping you or showing their authority, by speaking at a certain tone or blocking your path. The highest degree is arrest, where you obviously can't just walk away. A personal search is more than a frisk, a pat-down of your outer garments, its a search where an office actually puts their hands inside your garments.


So more butchering of the amendment is now the requirement for a stop and frisk, reasonable suspicion. Interesting police don't need a warrant due to probable cause, police don't need probable cause due to reasonable suspicion. how much more butchering can this amendment take, what's next the standard lowered to assumption observation, they must have made a reasonable observation to assume criminal offense. You put your hand in your pants pocket then in your jacket pocket, and what they observed you switch pockets leading them to assume you moved a weapon to a bigger pocket. It sounds ludicrous, but with the way things are going, why not let the police violate us a little more, they haven't stopped. So something designed to make us feel safe and secure in our neighborhoods has been butchered and now justifies the violation of our rights and personal or even public humiliation.

And if your a youth and your parents or anyone tells you if a police officer stops you obey and do what they say unless they tell you don't move exercise your fifth amendment right to remain silent and your right to be left alone. And if they say you can't leave, say "Why, what is your main purpose for stopping me, how did I give satisfy your reasonable suspicion by walking home". Don't be afraid say it, I wish I knew all that I do now about a year ago. I tell you this because we should all stand up for our rights, butchered or not, their still ours. And if they dear arrest you and charge you with resisting arrest or disorderly conduct you better hit your head on the roof of that impala so you can have a bruise to show so you can sue their asses.

Stand up for your rights people of all colors because if you don't they'll just stand over them, let them know we mean business Civil Rights Business.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

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)