Stop and Frisk and the Fourth Amendment
The stop and frisk is the stopping of a suspect by the police in a brief and non-intrusive manner. Before stopping a suspect, the fourth amendment requires the police to have reasonable suspicion that the suspect is about to commit the crime or has committed the crime. Upon suspecting a person to be dangerous or armed, the police have reasonable grounds to frisk the outer clothing of the suspect. In the 1968 Supreme Court case, Terry versus Ohio derived terry stop to mean frisking of a suspect. According to Terry, a stop and frisk must be reasonable and comply with the fourth amendment if the suspect poses a danger to the policeman and others.
According to Bandes and other authors, their case study on terry stop mismeasures attributed stop and frisk to psychological and emotional harm of communities and individuals (Bandes et al., 2019). Bandes and other social scientists indicated that the terry stop failed to address the quality and nature of intrusion to human rights. The authors also suggested that the stop and freeze adversely affect the vulnerable groups and individuals hence hindering investigation and prevention of crime by law enforcement agencies (White & Fradella, 2016). Therefore the courts and law enforcement agencies should consider amending the law on stop and frisk to rectify assumptions on its use and prevention of emotional and psychological harm to diverse communities and individuals.
References
Bandes, S. A., Pryor, M., Kerrison, E. M., & Goff, P. A. (2019). The mismeasure of Terry stops: Assessing the psychological and emotional harms of stop and frisk to individuals and communities. Behavioral sciences & the law, 37(2), 176-194.
White, M. D., & Fradella, H. F. (2016). Stop and frisk: The use and abuse of a controversial policing tactic. NYU Press.