Does "Stop and Frisk" Go Too Far?

July 16th, 2010   (263 views )

NEW YORK (AP) - Gov. David Paterson signed legislation Friday
that eliminates a database of thousands of people stopped and
frisked by New York City police without facing charges, calling the
practice "not a policy for a democracy."
Paterson signed the law over vehement objections of New York
City's mayor and police commissioner, who said the city was losing
a key crime-fighting tool.
But the governor said the policy that targets criminals won't be
affected by eliminating a database of people who were stopped, then
released.
"This law does not in any way tamper with our stop-and-frisk
policies," Paterson said. "What it does is it disallows the use
of personal data of innocent people who have not done anything
wrong. ... That is not a policy for a democracy."
Critics have said information from such stops, mainly of blacks
and Latinos who are innocent, can lead to future police suspicion
and surveillance. Police say the database helped to solve crimes,
including anti-gay and anti-Hispanic bias attacks.
"Albany has robbed us of a great crime-fighting tool, one that
saved lives," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said in a
statement. "Without it, there will be, inevitably, killers and
other criminals who won't be captured as quickly, or perhaps
ever."
Paterson said he had met with Kelly and spoken to Mayor Michael
Bloomberg, but had not been persuaded that the database protects
the city from crime.
"Civil justice, and I think common sense, would suggest that
those who are questioned and not even accused of crimes be
protected from any further stigma or suspicion," Paterson said.
He signed the bill at a press conference with the bill's
sponsors and supporters including the city's public advocate, Bill
de Blasio.
"Today's reform of the stop and frisk database reaffirms a
basic value of this country. The government cannot keep tabs on
people who have done nothing wrong," de Blasio said.
Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil
Liberties Union, praised Paterson for signing the legislation.
"Innocent people stopped by the police for doing nothing more
than going to school, work or the subway should not become
permanent criminal suspects," said Lieberman. "By signing this
bill, the Paterson administration has put itself on the right side
of history and leaves an important legacy in support of civil
rights, civil liberties and common sense."
In his sponsor's memo, Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, D-Brooklyn,
said that in 2009, the New York Police Department stopped 574,304
people, nearly 90 percent of them people of color, and nine out of
10 were released without any further legal action. Data show 2.5
million stops since 2005.
Sen. Eric Adams, a Brooklyn Democrat and former NYPD captain who
sponsored the bill, said Friday the bill would protect innocent
people from being targeted by police, especially minorities.
"Our fear is not to have our sons (be) victims of aggressive
criminal behavior, but we also don't want our children to be
victims of aggressive police behavior," Adams said.
The automated database, believed to be the only one in the
country, grew out of a law requiring police to keep details such as
age and race on anyone they stop, and it was envisioned as a way to
safeguard civil rights.
The law, enacted in 2001, required the police department to turn
information over to lawmakers every quarter. It was aimed at
uncovering whether police were disproportionately stopping black
and Hispanic men. But police also indefinitely hold on to addresses
and names of people stopped - information not required by the law.
The bill, which takes effect immediately, would not prohibit
police from entering into an electronic database generic
identifiers, such as gender, race and location of the stop.

Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: robert [Visitor] Email
"This law does not in any way tamper with our stop-and-frisk
policies," Paterson said. "What it does is it disallows the use
of personal data of innocent people who have not done anything
wrong. ... That is not a policy for a democracy."

And thats the way it should be.Those who do not live in the affected areas,could care less until it happens to them or their children.
PermalinkPermalink 07/16/10 @ 13:14
Comment from: Georgina [Visitor]
Yes, it does go too far - I'm glad the database is going away. Despite the commissioner's protests, this is definitely a step in the right direction. We give every criminal the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. Why maintain information on innocent people for no good reason?
PermalinkPermalink 07/16/10 @ 15:17
Comment from: William [Visitor] Email
One test of law enforcement practice is does it "invite" abuse. Stop and Frisk fails this test.

Another is any damage continuing. The database fails both tests.

Yet another is whether or not there are any checks, proactive or reactive, upon the officer. The NY law as currently implemented also fails this test.

Is the actual or potential harm to individuals or minority communities proportional to the benefit to society at large? While this is a question for the legislature, I suspect that most minorities at risk for abuse of this practice would differ with the NY legislature. However, a frisk is such an invasive form of search that it should be presumed to be "unreasonable." It should take a lot to overcome such a presumption.
PermalinkPermalink 07/16/10 @ 15:51
Comment from: John--- [Visitor] Email
"This law does not in any way tamper with our stop-and-frisk
policies," Paterson said.
"What it does is it disallows the use
of personal data of "innocent people" who have not done anything
wrong.
... That is not a policy for a "democracy".
THAT ABOUT SUMS IT UP.
______________________________
Ok. now that this matter has been settled...
NOW LET'S GET ONTO THE TOPIC OF "ILLEGAL" IMMIGRATION AND ITS EFFECTS- THEFT OF JOBS AND SERVICES IN THESE SAME COMMUNITIES, AS WELL, AS THE STATE BUDGETS OF EVERY STATE WHERE THE GREATER MAJORITY OF THEM HAVE TAKEN UP RESIDENCE.

WHAT DO THE FOLLOWING STATES HAVE IN COMMON (NY, NJ, FLA, ARIZ, CALIF. NEV.)
-None of them can balance their budgets.
-All of them top the nation in the number of illegals, and their state government(except Arizona) goes out of its way, to grant them extraordinary privileges at the expense of its citizens.
-Some even have officials who have ridiculed and derided their citizen communitys who are voicing their displeasure over the all too obvious allegiances to these uninvited invaders during- 1. time of war 2. the deepest recession since 1929.

LET DEMOCRACY WORK FOR EVERYONE!
-GRANT AMNESTY! Give "illegal" aliens a WAIVER to go back to their native lands AFFORD THEM THE OPPORTUNITY to make an impact in their own elections from what they have learned here. *This is good for their entire families, as well as our own employment status.
OR HAVE THEM FACE THE SAME PENALTIES AS ANY CITIZEN CHARGED WITH "THE FELONY" OF BREAKING AND ENTERING.

STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS EXEMPTIONS APPLY:
TO THOSE WHO CAN VERIFY 7YRS OF RESIDENCY WITH DOCUMENTED PROOFS.
-----------------
PermalinkPermalink 07/16/10 @ 16:08
Comment from: DOUG [Visitor] Email
I do not believe I should ever be stopped and asked to produce a drivers license.
If a black cop ever did this I'm SCREAMING racial profiling
RNN-please get a life,I come on here once a day to get my comics-French you are one clown LOL
PermalinkPermalink 07/16/10 @ 18:30
Comment from: Azaria Valentin [Visitor] Email
I think this "stop & frisk" policy is absolutely absurd. For the last few years we have seen the law constantly blur lines of privacy and "safety," for the sake of terrorism. Now we are crossing the lines between the freedom to roam the street and again "safety." Freedom to not be harassed by police and others clearly is out of the window. I think at some point enough is enough. We see this everyday that legally we perpetuate racial profiling and have it as an everyday reminder that mercy, peace and justice are at a constant battle with social and political circumstances. We implicate all these things into society and wonder why implicit biased still exists? This goes to far. Now the thought of racial profiling is again installed into us like a hard drive. What's next? What are we allowing our-selves to do?
PermalinkPermalink 07/16/10 @ 18:48
Comment from: robert [Visitor] Email
And if the cop was white?

"If a black cop ever did this I'm SCREAMING racial profiling"
PermalinkPermalink 07/17/10 @ 08:53
Comment from: DOUG [Visitor] Email
Then I'd scream police brutality
PermalinkPermalink 07/17/10 @ 09:49
Comment from: John--- [Visitor] Email
Doug: re: "Then I'd scream police brutality."

Not too loudly I'd hope for your sake. His snitch Bubba, the organ grinder might be right next to you sharing the same cell with you. lol
PermalinkPermalink 07/17/10 @ 17:51
Comment from: robert [Visitor] Email
FYI:

Voter anger over bailout and stimulus is misguided
Published: Sunday, July 18, 2010, 7:17 AM
John Farmer,From the Newark Star Ledger











Economic literacy has never been a strong suit for American voters. Many, maybe most, can’t tell the difference between the federal deficit and the debt.

The latest manifestation of this national ignorance is found in the reaction to the federal government’s bailout of the big banks and its stimulus spending to save jobs. Polls suggest they’re an election liability for anyone in Congress, Democrat or Republican, who voted for either.

The bailout, according to this thinking, was an unforgiveable giveaway to a bunch of Wall Street bad guys who should have been busted, not bailed out — an understandable sentiment but short-sighted. The stimulus, according to its critics, was a waste of money because it created no new jobs — a misreading of its purpose.

Take the bank bailout first. If you care a whit about saving our capitalist system, then the federal government had no choice but to rescue the banks. They provide the credit for businesses and individuals without which capitalism is kaput.

Allowing the banks to fail would have cost the country hundreds of thousands of more lost jobs and mountains of misery for a middle class which lives largely on borrowed money in the form of mortgages, bank credit lines and credit cards.

Democrats are regularly targeted with the bailout charge. But Republicans who voted to help the banks are regular targets too, particularly of Tea Party deficit hawks. In denying Utah’s veteran Republican Sen. Robert Bennett another term, Tea Party types taunted him with chants of “TARP, TARP, TARP,” the acronym for the bank bailout program.

The irony is that TARP was initiated in the fall of 2008 by a GOP president, George W. Bush — something Bush has never received adequate credit for — and continued by Barack Obama. It’s one of Washington’s few bipartisan accomplishments of recent years. It deserves applause, not attack.

The same is true for the stimulus program. It too suffers from widespread misunderstanding, the product to some degree of imprecise poll questioning.

In too many cases, the question posed is the wrong one: whether the stimulus has created “new” jobs. Considering that some eight million jobs were lost, creating new jobs was never possible with the amount provided.

But it did save some jobs that would otherwise have been lost, something to celebrate, not condemn.

Those few critics who concede the stimulus spending has saved jobs complain that they’re public jobs, mostly unionized, not private sector work. But they’re still jobs saved and that’s a worthy goal for government. Just ask almost any governor who’s been spared some layoff pain by the stimulus money.

TARP and the stimulus program are not the only targets of Tea Party activists. Their hit list also includes the rescue of the auto companies. The beef in this case is similar to that against the bank bailout — that the incompetence that marked the decline and fall of the auto giants should not be rewarded.

Understandable, maybe, but again short-sighted. Letting GM and Chrysler go to auto heaven would have meant the death of hundreds of thousands of jobs provided by thousands of auto dealers and suppliers who are mainstays of Main Streets and strip malls across the country.

At the very least the cost of TARP, the stimulus program and the auto rescue will likely be less than critics would have us believe. The banks already have paid back much of TARP, with interest, and all of stimulus money has still not been spent.

Moreover, together they may well have prevented the Great Recession from becoming a second Great Depression.

That doesn’t seem to be the perception of many in the electorate, however. They’re angry and fearful, need a villain, and are susceptible to uninformed sound-bite bombast. It would be sad indeed if that kind of ignorance were to drive election decisions this fall. But it wouldn’t be the first time, would it?
PermalinkPermalink 07/18/10 @ 09:02
Comment from: Mike G [Visitor] Email
"Voter anger over bailout and stimulus is misguided"

I classic example of the overused expression of "putting lipstick on a pig" to try to gain votes.

They never mention anything about Obamacare, which is still a very big part of voter anger. If we were headed toward the great depression this should not have been their top priority.

Very few will deny some amount of bank bailout was needed but IMO this administration used that excuse to go on a spending spree. Even if they temporarily saved some Union jobs they mortgaged off much of our future. If car dealers went Chapter 11 they would have restructured and hired perhaps more workers without costing the taxpayers. The article does not even consider all the honest businesses that were hurt by government bailing out their competitors.

I firmly believe that it is the extra spending and debt that is keeping the economy down and preventing businesses from hiring. I believe we would be on our way to recovery if these Democrats did not over spend their hand and at the same time threaten new taxes to pay for all this.

A confident, positive, self reliant attitude by businesses and consumers will do more to grow the economy then any temporary government handout. These Democrats continue with negative, decisive policies that is keeping the spark from igniting.
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