Issues of Stop and Frisk and Domestic Terrorism
Americans are protected by the Fourth Amendment in the United States Constitution against unreasonable searches and seizures. However, there is a limitation to the right provided by the Fourth Amendment. For instance, the stop and frisk allow police officers to briefly detain a person they suspect to have the criminal motivation to have engaged in a criminal act concerning the existing probable cause. Stop and frisk is mostly used when the law enforcement officer has probable cause or believes that the suspect may be armed and dangerous. An officer may develop reasonable cause based on the suspect’s demeanor, emotional, and action states, including the surroundings the suspect is present in (HG.org., 2020). Stop and frisk involve various issues. One of the issues concerning stop and frisk is the frisking process. The frisking process aims at identifying if the suspect is armed and dangerous to himself or the safety of others around him. The issue in the frisking process arises when the law enforcement officer in the process of frisking obtain the object such as drugs rather than a weapon. The law officer can seize the drug as evidence against the suspect. The solution to the frisking problem is to amend the frisking law so that it can include other illegal objects that may be found on the suspect, such as illegal drugs.
Another issue associated with stop and frisk is the incentives, whereby promotions and incentives are offered to law enforcement offices by law enforcement agencies based on the successful number of stops, searches, and frisks conducted to reveal weapons or drugs. The incentive issue could result in law enforcement officers engaging in making a false statement concerning reasonable suspicion to find more items that could incriminate the suspect during the stop and frisk process (HG.org., 2020). The possible solution to the incentive issue is to developed policies and mechanisms that would be used to evaluate the performance of the law enforcement officers for promoting officers or offering incentives.
Another issue concerning the stop and frisk process is discriminatory practices, whereby the stop and frisk process is conducted much more often in some areas or more against people of a certain background, such as minority than more affluent or Caucasian people. For instance, during Michael R. Bloomberg’s tenure as mayor of New York from 2002 to 2013, he promoted the stop and frisk program that saw the police often target young black and Latino men (Southall and Gold, 2020). The law enforcement officers when Mr. Bloomberg in office, other police tactics were used that were considered to enhance security but in a real sense provided police officers with overly broad discretion to target mostly Latino and black men for stop and frisk. The stop and frisk tool is also associated with unjustified stop issues, whereby innocent people are subjected to the practice, yet they had no intention of engaging or having conducted criminal activities. For instance, between 2002 and 2013, law enforcement officers stopped and questioned people rampantly with the belief that they may have engaged in criminal activities on the street in New York (Southall and Gold, 2020). The stop and frisk were conducted more than five million times, with young black and Latino men being targeted for weapons that rarely materialized as well as other innocent individuals. Therefore, to solve the discriminatory practices and unjustified stop issues, the law enforcement agencies should ensure the police officers are well trained in evaluating the situations with regard to the reasonable course.
The stop and frisk process also creates community fear. As much as criminals will fear the possibility of being stopped anytime by police officers, the practice results in innocent people developing a fear of the same possibilities. The stop and frisk tactic was initially implemented with the aim of protecting law enforcement officers from dangers associated with their line of duty. However, the tactic has raised concerns with regard to the way law enforcement officers are implanting it, which has resulted in innocent people to fear the law enforcement officers who are supposed to ensure their safety.
The issues related to the stop and frisk police practice and various misuse of the tactic by law enforcement officers has resulted in other states developing restrictions under which the tactic can be used, limiting the ability of law enforcement officers to protect themselves and the people. Other areas have completely abandoned the practice. However, the best option for dealing with the issues of stop and frisk is to develop policies, procedures, and mechanisms that would guide and help law enforcement officers in determining the presence of reasonable cause. The inclusion of policing technologies, such as web cum will ensure law enforcement officers follow the standard procedures in place in conducting the stop and frisk practice.
Domestic terrorism is defined under the 2001 USA Patriot Act as activities that incorporate acts considered to endanger human life and that violet the federal or state’s criminal laws and appear to be intended. According to the FBI, domestic terrorism is considered as any unlawful use or threatened use of violence by an individual or group of people that are based and operate entirely within the U.S. or its territories (Watson, 2002). For violent acts to be considered as domestic terrorisms, there should lack any foreign direction committed against people or property towards intimidating or coercing the United States government or any government structure in the U.S., the civilian population in furtherance of social or political objectives. There are various issues associated with domestic terrorism in the United States.
One of the issues related to domestic terrorisms is associated with the current terrorism statutes, which are considered to fail to cover attacks by domestic terrorists. The issue is based on various reasoning, including the complaints that domestic extremists do not often charged as terrorists (Laguardia, 2020). The other reasoning is that most crimes considered as acts of violence conducted by the individual of the Islamic religion result in the labeling as terrorism with suspects receiving linger jail time, and most are subjected to more aggressive investigations with less or lack of proper oversight. However, the acts of violence conducted by white extremists are mostly labeled as hate crimes or conventional criminal violations.
Possible solutions to issues concerning domestic terrorism are the creation of a domestic terrorism statute that will enhance the implementation of more federal investigative and prosecutorial authority, including the provision of equal resources, rhetoric, and attention for both domestic and international terrorism. The elements of domestic terrorism should be well defined in both law enforcement and the judicial justice system to ensure equality is achieved in terms of the acts of violence to solve the labeling issues based on race, religion, or nationality of the suspects (Laguardia, 2020). The other approach that can be used to handle issues concerning domestic terrorism if designating groups linked to domestic terrorism as a terrorist organization. The designation will ensure that the individual that commit violent acts that are considered as domestic terrorism but use their groups as shielding objects to being charged under domestic terrorism acts is eliminated making each person equal before the law.
References
HG.org. (2020). Dangers of Stop and Frisk. Retrieved from https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/dangers-of-stop-and-frisk-40085
Laguardia, F. (2020). Considering a Domestic Terrorism Statute and Its Alternatives. Northwestern University Law Review. 114. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1283&context=nulr_online
Southall, A., and Gold, M. (2020). Why ‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Inflamed Black and Hispanic Neighborhoods. The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/17/nyregion/bloomberg-stop-and-frisk-new-york.html
Watson, D. (2002). Testimony. FBI. Retrieved from https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/testimony/the-terrorist-threat-confronting-the-united-states
