The New York Police Department’s controversial stop-and-frisk initiative may not be getting guns off the street or reducing crime, but it is certainly making an impact on public opinion. A new poll by the New York Times found that a significant majority of New Yorkers think police favor whites over blacks. The sentiment is especially strong within the African American community; 80 percent of the respondents agreed that police favor whites, compared to 48 percent of white New Yorkers. The poll also found that a majority of black New Yorkers think stop-and-frisk has led to the harassment of innocent people.
This perception may come from the fact that the NYPD made more stops of young black men in 2011 than the total number of young black men in the city. Police have been accused of practicing racial profiling through stop-and-frisk, which would explain why attitudes towards the policy fall along racial lines:
Opinions about stop-and-frisk fall are divided by race. Fifty-five percent of whites described the use of the tactic as acceptable; 56 percent of blacks called it excessive. Among Hispanics, 48 percent said it was acceptable and 44 percent said it was excessive. Republicans, independents and residents of Queens generally support the practice; Democrats and Manhattanites generally deem it excessive.
Overall, 64 percent of New Yorkers say the police favors one race over the other, a steep rise from the early years of the Bloomberg administration, when less than half of residents agreed with that sentiment. The perception of police favoritism has not been as widespread since the final years of Mr. Giuliani’s tenure, when race relations were noticeably more tense. (The question has not been asked in a Times poll since 2003.)
These views, in many cases, appear to have been influenced by personal experience. A third of the New Yorkers surveyed, including 37 percent of black people, said police officers had used insulting language toward them. A fifth of the respondents said they had been stopped by a police officer because of their race or ethnicity, and almost all were black or Hispanic, and more likely to be young and male.
Besides damaging their relationship with minority communities, the NYPD has also alienated journalists and activists through the program, prompting several allegations against police officers for beating up, intimidating and arresting anyone who films them.