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Fattah vs. Nutter on Stop-and-Frisk (yep, again.)
Submitted by JKFriz on Sat, 05/12/2007 - 12:57am.
Fattah, today, described his enforcement plan as this:
"In my plan on gun violence, I proposed forming an elite group of specially trained police officers to pursue illegal guns in our neighborhoods that will be spread out across the city, not just in some neighborhoods."
In terms of racial profiling as we understand it, which is as a formal or informal police prejudice that views a minority race as more likely to commit a crime - isn't this actually WORSE? Targeted enforcement of stop-and-frisk will mostly occur in the neighborhoods with the highest crime rates, which are largely single-race neighborhoods, so suspicious activity will be observed against a race-neutral background. As a citywide policy, by contrast, you're moving the scene of stop-and-frisk enforcement into integrated neighborhoods, where any innate propensity toward racial profiling is much more likely to be triggered.
In my mind, the real problem with stop-and-frisk in targeted areas has to do with the problematic relationships between communities and cops in those areas, not with "racial profiling" per se. And I'm confused about how Fattah's enforcement policies are less likely to cause racial profiling than Nutter's. Particularly since he says he'll increase the number of gun enforcement officers in high-crime neighborhoods. On a logistical level, I think Fattah's policies actually encourage the same result with regard to racial profiling - or worse - without the same level of effectiveness.
Bear in mind that I don't view Nutter's crime policy as un-problematic, and I'm not trying to defend stop-and-frisk in and of itself. I do think that Nutter's relative honesty about his preferred methods has led to a level of scrutiny which hasn't been visited upon the other candidates.
***I'm fully aware that I've posted much of this in another thread. Yeah, I'm that guy. Sorry.
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Ah I can't keep doing this on all these different threads
First, I agree that it is inefficient to focus on "all neighborhoods" instead of the ones with measurable illegal gun problems (for profiling reasons, maybe, but also efficiency/effectiveness). I think the focus should be even more narrow and specific than in Nutter's plan as written. Either Fattah is clumsily trying to re-distinguish his version from Nutter's--there are real differences, more on which below--or it is just not going to work the way it sounds from that one sentence.
A more probable outcome and reading of that sentence: the special unit will go wherever there is a measurable need to enforcement, but will not be tied, roadblock-style, to specific bad neighborhoods. The police would follow the crime itself, and Fattah wouldn't create parallel legal/policing regimes only applicable to certain (poor, black) neighborhoods.
A big potential difference regarding the risk of profiling or bad police/community relations is Fattah's idea of using one specially trained unit versus Nutter's plan to have police in the targeted neighborhoods enforcing the new rules and stop and frisk-ing. There's been debate over what Nutter said here, but I think it is pretty clear from the written plan: the targeted neighborhoods would have new, stricter, temporary laws and the police normally working in those areas would enforce them--including by increased use of stop and frisk.
You ignore both different level of training that would be possible using a specialized force, AND the whole state of emergency piece to Nutter's plan (which I've repeatedly argued is the thing that increases the amount of discretion possible in a stop-and-frisk interaction beyond what it would normally be, raising the risk of police harassment and other problems.
Jennifer
BTW
This isn't an argument that one would work better than the other: I think they will both get refined as they move towards implementation and I am most concerned with pushing whichever future mayor to adjust the plan so it is effective both in reducing crime and building positive police/community relationships (an important part of reducing crime itself, and in bringing normal civic life back to neighborhoods).
Jennifer
I'm interested in how having
I'm interested in how having a specially trained unit, with its members spread throughout the neighborhoods - which does seem to be how Fattah's drawn it up - is a safer guarantee against racial profiling, which is the major concern that Fattah and other candidates have raised. You're right in that it MIGHT be a better deterrent against the undesirable low-level drug arrests that you discussed elsewhere than Nutter's state-of-emergency idea - but only if the policing mandate for the unit is drawn up in a certain way, and neither candidate has been clear on this.
In any case, there are still a lot of questions that need answering, I think you'll agree. My point, again, isn't to weigh in on the overall desirability of either plan - but I think the terms in which the debate has been couched have been misleading. Unfortunately, I think it may be easier to have a debate about racial profiling than a more productive conversation about police harassment in general.
***
Volunteering for Michael Nutter
I think you are conflating a couple things
You may be right that the "main concern" people, including other candidates, have brought up is "racial profiling." However, I think people use "racial profiling" clumsily to mean a lot of things, including disparate impact on black people (I've made the same conflation myself here, and others have clarified).So I don't think that a conversation just about racial profiling (will it or won't it happen) is more productive than a deeper conversation about the actual impact on the targeted communities/areas.
Actually the Inquirer article today on this, while pretty superficial (though long), made the point that the perception of profiling or harassment is a problem regardless of whether literal racial profiling is happening.
Jennifer
Just to point out, Mr. Friz
While I think your point is an interesting one, I also think that you somewhat inadvertantly uncover a larger problem with the whole S&F concept.
Your saying that doing the S&F in integrated neighborhoods is likely to trigger racial profiling, indicates that a major criteria that the police will be using to determine who to S&F will undoubtedly be race.
You're essentially saying that race-neutral criteria such as a "bulge" in clothing, or wearing a long coat on a hot day, will not really be sufficient to identify people who are likely to be carrying guns illegally.
Nutter's plan simply obfuscates the racial profiling component. Instead of individual cops targeting individual kids based on race - the entire program make the racial profiling component systemic. Black kids in poor neighborhoods will be stopped, not because of race-independent criteria, but because they are black kids in poor neighborhoods. Will I be stopped if I'm walking in the same neighborhood? No. Not even if I have an unsually large cell phone in my pocket. And according to Nutter's program, black kids (and white kids) walking in non-targeted neighborhoods will not be stopped.
I agree that the focus should be on pressuring whomever gets elected to think these issues through thoroughly so that whatever crime-fighting program is implemented can be maximally successful. But trying to somehow differentiate the inherent problems in aggressive law-enforcement on the basis of which candidate is proposing what seems more political to me than anything else. And to make it political, again, at least Fattah has expressed a greater amount of concern about the racial-profiling dangers - which is why Nutter's plan has been under greater scrutiny.
I'm not sure the the racial profiling aspect means that a program shouldn't be implemented if law-abiding citizens in high-crime communities want such a program. However, each attempt that's made to downplay the racial profiling component only decreases the chances that a program would be successful - as does each attempt to exaggerate the benefits of such a program.
I would like to see a lot more focus on questions such as: What will happen to kids if they're found carrying guns illegally, and if they're incarcerated, what will the impact of that be on the community and to the legal/prison system? If the guns are merely confiscated, and the kids aren't incarcerated, given the fact that acquiring new guns is so easy to do, isn't the entire program basically a huge waste of money and energy?
Your saying that doing the
I'm not so sure I AM saying that. I think a widespread sentiment is: we don't trust the cops to always make good decisions about stopping-and-frisking with regard to race. From a practical level, then, is it better to have stop-and-frisk in targeted, mostly segregated neighborhoods, or citywide? I would argue that the latter instance would be more likely to trigger poor decision-making.
As far as the "systemic" racial profiling you identify - well, that's a little thorny, true enough. A secret: on a visceral level, I LOATHE this policy. These people have been fucked around enough - I have a hard time agreeing with anything that possibly subjects community members to discomfort and humiliation. To mouth a popular piety, the violence is symptomatic of lots of other sucky things. On the other hand, we have a completely unprecedented wave of gun violence and homicide, and I think the psychological benefits of providing a temporary level of security in the worst-off neighborhoods aren't negligible.
As to your final point - the only really effective means of preventing crime (aside from fixing its root causes, of course) is increasing the probability of arrest. Not incarceration, but arrest. So yeah, I don't think it's a waste of money if the majority of the confiscations don't involve prison.
***
Volunteering for Michael Nutter
Yeah, this is the heart of it, right
It's tough. To go back to Sam's semi-subtle pushing me to take a position on the other thread: the horribleness of the gun violence problem is probably enough to make me supportive of something like this, even with the concern of the "systemic racial profiling." That's the kernel of truth in Nutter's "the real civil right is not to get shot." It sucks out there right now already, and we are going to need SOME form of heightened policing.
But I think if we go that path we have a responsibility to do all we possibly can to help and not hurt the communities we are supposedly working in the interest of. Because, yeah, "these people have been fucked around enough."
Maybe my sentiment boils down to: I sure as hell don't trust the police, but since it looks like we have to rely on them, we have to figure out how to make that work.
Jennifer