"This book examines the role of stop & frisk as one of America's predominant crime control strategies. In the past, policing focused on responding to crimes in progress or (more often) already committed. Beginning in the mid-1990s, American policing moved toward proactive strategies for deterring crime from occurring in the first place. Crime in the United States was dropping, and police leaders claimed responsibility for this success. However, but during the 2010s violent crime began to swing upward again. Police now had responsibility for crime, and this led almost inevitably to more heavily targeted and aggressive police tactics. In theory, stop & frisk promotes deterrence in two ways, by increasing offender's risk of being caught and punished, and bydiscouraging the general public from even considering offending in the first place. In law, stop & frisk was validated by the Supreme Court as a reasonable compromise between the personal freedoms of Americans and the risks presented by an increasing armed and crime-ridden society. Officers could frisk an individual for a weapon even without the t traditional requirement that there was probable cause to think they had committed a crime. This book takes a third focus, stop & frisk in actual practice. It examines its origins as Chicago's predominant strategy for responding to the turnaround in violent crime. The story includes the political agendas of two mayors and four chiefs of police. Further chapters examined how stop & frisk played itself out on the streets of Chicago, and its impact on public opinion. There are chapters detailing the views of police officers who did the work of stop & frisk, and an analysis of its impact on murders and shootings. A final chapter considers alternatives to stop & frisk as it was practiced in Chicago"--
A comprehensive analysis of the stop & frisk policy, its origins as Chicago's predominant strategy for responding to violence, and its impact on crime and public opinion.
Stop & frisk has drawn a great deal of attention--and heated criticism--in recent years, for racial bias in its application and for the often violent and sometimes fatal nature of these encounters. In Stop & Frisk and the Politics of Crime in Chicago, Wesley G. Skogan offers a comprehensive analysis of the stop-and-frisk policy, its origins as Chicago's predominant strategy for responding to violence, and its impact on crime and public opinion. Drawing on a crime database of over 14 million incidents, interviews with 1,450 Chicagoans and 714 police officers, and the author's 30 years of studying, talking to, and riding along with Chicago police officers, Skogan looks at the inner workings of police departments and the history and politics of crime prevention that motivate these policies. Rather than looking at individual stops and how they are handled, he argues for considering stop & frisk as an organizational strategy, intimately tied to the move from reactive to preventive policing.
Examining one of America's predominant crime control strategies, this book provides an essential analysis of the origins, implementation, and effects of stop & frisk in Chicago and on urban policing in general.
