More than 80% of the 450,000 people frisked by the NYPD in first 3 quarters 2009 were black/latino

[The Straight Story]

The Uphill Battle Against Racial Profiling


It's hard to stamp out racial profiling in law enforcement when you've got lawmakers like U.S. Sen. James Inhofe and New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind running around saying it's a good idea. Inhofe, for one, says he "believe(s) in racial and ethnic profiling." Hikind is more demure, saying he's against the concept, but that it's wholly justified as part of the war on terror.

Some recent numbers should make both lawmakers happy. 'Frisked while brown' is alive and well, at least in New York. The NYPD's 2009 stop-and-frisk statistics should come out soon, but meanwhile, Bob Herbert cited numbers

from the first nine months of the year, and they're appalling. More than 80% of the 450,000 people frisked by the NYPD in the first three quarters of 2009 were black or Latino. Only about six percent of these stops end in arrest.

As I've written before, white people are often more like to be caught with contraband, and the latest numbers show that's also true in New York. Weapons were found on 1.1 percent of the blacks stopped, 1.4 percent of the Hispanics and 1.7 percent of the whites. (Of course, there's a better chance of stopping innocent minorities when you stop mostly minorities, so that might skew the data.)

http://criminaljustice.change.org/blog/view/the_uphill_battle_against_racial_profiling

[Lithos]

1. Or..

You are more likely to carry if you know you have a good chance of not being caught...

However, I think yours the more likely explanation - profiling is pulling in more innocent minorities.

L-

[Number23]

2. Rec'd. These two sentences say it all:

"More than 80% of the 450,000 people frisked by the NYPD in the first three quarters of 2009 were black or Latino."

and yet...

"white people are often more like to be caught with contraband"