14 February 2007

Stop and Frisks


The New York Police Department released new information during the first week of February of 2007. It shows that police officers stopped an amazing number of people this last year. The last time 12 month data was disclosed was in 2002. At that time, there were 97, 296 individuals stopped on NYC streets--many of them searched. That number has jumped by over 500% to 508,540 citizens stopped and/or searched last year. That's an average of 1,393 stops per day. I know I feel safer.
The number of stops and summonses has increased by 5 times and the number of arrests has doubled. If you want to read the entire NYT article, but don't have a subscription, you can view it on the Randomized Geek blog here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

You should only worry if you are doing something wrong. Those of us who conform to society will rule over the dissenters with prejudice.

ellen jaye benson said...

Being wrong these days can consist of something as simple as being born African-American or Latino or growing up in a low socio-economic neighbourhood - it pays to look at the statistics - racial and class villification is rife!

Erik said...

Unfortunately, the lovely Pirate knows what she is talking about. Check out the arrest, conviction, length of sentence, and execution rates alongside the racial and socio-economic background statistics.

It becomes very obvious very quickly that all men are NOT equal in the U.S. and with recent years the divide has continued to increase.