Essay Sample Stop and Frisk

Essay Sample Stop and Frisk Police officers have a goal to protect every innocent human being. Very often, it is quite complicated to do this, but it is necessary to do their best to accomplish this goal. Stop and frisk program was created in order to prevent crimes. In general, it means that when a police officer sees a suspicious person, he or she has a right to stop him/her, ask questions and check where he/she has a gun or contraband. From the first sight, it looks quite effective. However, it is quite a debatable question, because it is hard to understand whether stop and frisk program is more good or bad for the society. This program can be quite effective, which is also shown in practice. There are a great number of cases when polices officers stopped suspicious people and prevented crimes or found contraband. However, there is always a chance that a person is innocent, which make him/her feel him/herself quite uncomfortable. Yet, this wouldn’t be a serious problem, if this the police officers treated all people equally. Unfortunately, according to the statistics, the number of African American and Latin people stopped by the police is much higher than the number of white people. About 90% of all people stopped by the police officers are not white, and about 88% people are innocent. Racial discrimination is a result of this program. However, most of the police officers state that they do not do anything wrong. They explain their actions as a necessity. In most of the cases, the areas where people are stopped and asked questions are adverse. Unfortunately, exactly the people of color live in such areas. In other words, the police officers explain their actions as the right ones because they are done in the crime hot spots. Moreover, it is very hard to prove that the police officers do something wrong, because the law allows such actions. A lot of the police officers think that the stop and frisk program is quite effective at reducing the number of gun offenses and violent crimes. Yet, people who always become suspects don’t think like that. There is a great number of examples that can prove that this program has changed the lives of many people in a bad way. One of the brightest examples is handshaking. Teenagers that live in the adverse areas are afraid of handshaking. They do not do this because they know that any police officer can think that they have deals with the drugs. Isn’t it quite unfair? The other vivid example of the discrimination and bad effect of the stop and frisk program is that people are afraid to go outside. One teenager was stopped by the police about 200 times, however, he never did anything wrong. As a result, he feels uncomfortable outside, and have no desire to leave his home. Such attitude of the police changes people’s lives, and usually, these changes aren’t positive. Both, the people of color and white people, think that stop and frisk program isn’t a good idea when it comes to racial discrimination. The good effect it has can approve the harmful effect on the citizens of the country. A great number of people are afraid of the stop and frisk program and want to get rid of it in order to have a more calm life than they have now. Yet, it is possible to find a compromise. If to update the law in order to protect the innocent people, the situation will become better. It won’t fully solve the problem, but it will reduce the number of people who suffer from the stop and frisk program.