Stop and Frisk Only Hurts Black and Brown Communities

By
by Anna LauBach, Director of Special Initiatives

Patrick Sharkey, in his book An Uneasy Peace argues that Stop and Frisk policies did much to damage if not ruin any trusting relationship between police and the communities most impacted by violence. Stop and Frisk is the practice by which an individual can be stopped by the police if the officer has reason to suspect a crime has been or is about to be committed, and then frisked if there is suspicion he/she is carrying a weapon. Before it was ruled unconstitutional in 2013, Stop and Frisk was disproportionately carried out in black and brown neighborhoods where citizens, especially young men, suffered dire consequences.

Photo by Matt Popovich on Unsplash

Data from New York City show that at the height of Stop and Frisk in 2011, over 685,000 people were stopped by the police, 88 percent of whom were completely innocent, 53 percent were African American, 34 percent were Latinx, and 9 percent were white. As is becoming more widely acknowledged, violent crime in the country’s largest cities, and across the world for that matter, has been on the decline since the early 1990s. In New York City, there were almost 2,250 homicides in 1990 compared to an all-time low of 290 in 2017. Even in Chicago, where the declines have not been as dramatic, homicides declined from a high of over 926 in 1994 to 411 in 2014. The recent spike in 2016 of 762 homicides, while tragic and alarming, did not reach the 1994 peak.

When Stop and Frisk officially ended in 2013, violent crime continued to decline, but unfortunately fear of the police in targeted communities remained. While no one agrees on the exact reasons for declining violence, to suggest a return to Stop and Frisk is to move in the opposite direction of what the data, not to mention the communities most impacted tells us is the right course of action. It also ignores the complexity of violence as a problem in communities whose residents have mostly been left out of the solutions.

Recent projects like the Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities, Communities Partnering for Peace, Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability, and Envisioning Justice seek to bring community members back into a conversation about safety and justice at the same time they are attempting to redefine the relationship between police and the communities they serve. There are no simple answers to reducing violence, but as we search for them we as a country must confront our past and its costs to our citizens in pursuit of public safety.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home Visiting Helps Combat Effects of Toxic Stress in Young Children

By
Guest blog by Diana Rauner, President, Ounce of Prevention Fund & Gaylord Gieseke, Vice President, Voices for Illinois Children  The number of children at risk for the short and long-term effects of toxic childhood stress is growing dramatically. This was the dismal news highlighted in a policy statement released last month by the American Academy of Pediatrics and in a recent op-ed from New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Both cite new research that demonstrates that the cumulative effects of growing up in environments replete with violence, parental depression, chaos and other uncertainties can literally alter the healthy, normal development of a young child’s brain. These stressors can impede a child’s capacity to “power down” from the fight or flight reflex, which reduces his ability to manage his temper and emotions or show empathy to others. It can also lead to later drug and alcohol use, obesity, heart disease and even early death. But it doesn’t have to be th...
Read more

Preschool Attendance Matters

By
Image
by Stacy Ehrlich and Julia Gwynne  Nationally, there has been a great effort to increase funding for early education programs to increase enrollment of at-risk children into high-quality programs, such as Head Start. However, recent research highlights that once children are enrolled in preschool, they must also regularly attend to reap the benefits. A study conducted by the University of Chicago Consortium on Chicago School Research, in collaboration with Chicago Public Schools, found that preschool students who are chronically absent – meaning they miss 10 percent or more of enrolled school days – have lower levels of math, letter recognition, and social-emotional skills by the time they enter kindergarten than children who attend regularly. In the 2011-12 school year, 45 percent of 3-year-olds and more than one-third of 4-year-olds were missing this much school – equivalent to three weeks. Moreover, for a portion of these students, preschool is the beginning of a pattern t...
Read more

Tracing America's Painful Past Can Offer Lessons for the Future

By
Image
On Saturday night, staff from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation will be attending the DuSable Museum of African American History’s “Night of 100 Stars,” a benefit highlighting the amazing achievements of notable individuals, including artist and musician Chancelor “Chance the Rapper” Bennett, former World Food Program executive director Ertharin Cousin, and Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. and former president of the Chicago History Museum. Lonnie Bunch also had a piece in today’s New York Times about a recent incident at the National Museum in whcih someone placed a noose near one of the museum’s exhibits. This follows instances of nooses being left elsewhere on the National Mall in recent weeks, and in other places around the country as signs of racial hate and intimidation. Bunch offers a powerful view into the continuing story of racism and bigotry in this country, as well as our uneven progre...
Read more