Thursday, June 21, 2012

Racial Profiling: Police "Stop and Frisk" Practices in America

Racial Profiling: Police "Stop and Frisk" Practices in America: In 2011: The NYPD subjected people to stop-and-frisk 686,000 times. Nine out of 10 were not arrested or ticketed; 87 percent were Black or Latino. Black and Latino males 14-24 years old make up 4.7 percent of the city's population, but accounted for 41.6 percent of the stops. Since 2002, the number of stop-and-frisks has increased by 600 percent—4,356,927 people have been stopped during the past 10 years. By law, police must have "reasonable suspicion" that someone is carrying a weapon in order to frisk them—but a gun was retrieved in only 2 percent of the stops. (source: New York Civil Liberties Union)

In 2012: The pattern continues. Of the 203,500 people stopped in the first three months, 54 percent were Black, 33 percent were Latino, and 89 percent were found to be innocent. (NYCLU)

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