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Showing posts with the label Stop and Frisk

Is our Justice System Targeting Minorities?

The justice system throughout history has shown that it targets minorities in a very unfair manner. This is shown in many different ways specifically, let us talk about New York Cities stop and frisk policy. This policy allowed police officers to stop New Yorkers, interrogate and search them simply due to "reasonable suspicion." This policy started because of the high crime rates in New York City, but this is deemed to be not a plausible way to stop the crime rates from going up. The stops mainly targeted the African American and Hispanic populations. In 2019, 13,4459 stops were recorded by the NYPD. Of these 13,459 stops, 66% were innocent, 59% were black, 29% were Hispanic, and 9% were white. The stop-and-frisk policy came into play in 1968. It was often called the Terry stops because of the court case Terry vs. Ohio. This court case said that the stops had to be "reasonable." By 1999, Hispanic and African Americans accounted for 50% of New York City but made up