Stop-and-Frisk: It Saves Lives

By Yekania Herrand

Illustration shows what happens when a person is stopped and frisked by a police officer (Source-http://monachuslex.com/?p=640)

I believe that the Stop-and-Frisk law is very useful and should continue to go on. Even though most of the time people are found innocent after they are stopped and frisked, many lives are saved as well by stopping the criminals first-hand.

There are too many people who are dangerous and are lurking in the streets with weapons. In order to be or feel protected police should do their very best to stop criminals and violence that could occur at any point. Some people believe that race plays a key role in the Stop-and-Frisk procedures but that’s just an opinion and if people believe that blacks and hispanics are not dangerous then they shouldn’t worry if they’re stopped and frisked because they wouldn’t have any arms right?

The Stop-and-Frisk law was established partly because there were too many criminal acts that could’ve been prevented. According to www.nydailynews.com African Americans make up 25% of the New York City population but 64% of the murder victims and 71% of the shooting victims.

Also, the Stop-and-Frisk law is very reasonable because police don’t go off targeting everyone. They almost always have a good reason to why they’re following someone. Some of these justifications include: running from a crime area, having the appearance of someone who’s wanted by the Police Department, carrying something that looks like a gun, according to gothamist.com.

Dennis C. Smith is a professor of public policy at the Robert. F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University. Smith agrees with the Stop-and-Frisk policy and defends his case by stating that crime rates have decreased to a certain extent. In his article,”Stop and Frisk Has Lowered Crime in Other Cities”, he mentions that New York is one of those described cities. In the year 1990 there were 527,257 victims of serious crimes and that number of victims decreased all the way to 106,064 by 2011. He continues by saying that murders dropped in that period from 2,262 to 504.

Still a lot of individuals continue to complain that they don’t feel safe and that the police aren’t doing their job but in my opinion it’s mostly because the majority of people don’t allow them to.