RangerDave wrote:
Just a quick reply (since I should be working) regarding the likelihood of a lot of innocent Hispanic people being stopped. In NYC, there's a statute permitting cops to stop and question people based on "reasonable suspicion" of criminal activity. Same standard as the AZ law. In the last 5 years alone, 2 million pedestrians have been stopped pursuant to this law. Of those, roughly 90% were completely innocent of any wrongdoing, and roughly 90% were minorities. Given the racial makeup of the city, the chances of a white person being stopped are about 1 in 50. The chances of a black person being stopped are about 1 in 4. And that's without any racial correlation to the underlying crimes. How much worse do you think it's going to be when the underlying crime is heavily correlated with race?
1) By your own numbers, the chances of a white person being stopped are 1 in 10, not 1 in 50.
2) 90% were not completely innocent of any wrongdoing; they were either not ultimately convicted of anything as a result of that particular stop, or, if we're basing that on the number that were let go without ticket or arrest, that the officer simply didn't get to the level of probable cause. Reasonable suspicion is just that, reasonable
suspicion. Lots of things are suspicious and easily dismissed with cursory investigation.
3) What are we defining as a "stop"?
4) Why are we conflating "minority" with "black person"?
5) Where are these numbers from?
6) Why is this a problem? The effort of police is going to be directed at high crime areas, which are likely to be poor areas, which are likely to have lots of minorities.
7) Why is it going to be "worse" if the underlying crime is connected with race? That's not "worse". There's nothing "bad" going on in the first place. If the underlying crime is connected to race (or more precisely nationality and ethnicity) then we SHOULD see more people of that nationality getting stopped for it. Since they are more likely to be committing the crime, that means the police will more often have reasonable suspicion or probable cause for them to be committing the crime.
Quote:
As for hauling people off if they don't have ID, I'll get to that later, since it requires quoting from the bill itself. My recollection, though, is that the text requires an ICE check, which doesn't happen very quickly.
Here is the section in question, from Michael's post:
Quote:
20 B. FOR ANY LAWFUL CONTACT MADE BY A LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICIAL OR AGENCY
21 OF THIS STATE OR A COUNTY, CITY, TOWN OR OTHER POLITICAL SUBDIVISION OF THIS
22 STATE WHERE REASONABLE SUSPICION EXISTS THAT THE PERSON IS AN ALIEN WHO IS
23 UNLAWFULLY PRESENT IN THE UNITED STATES, A REASONABLE ATTEMPT SHALL BE MADE,
24 WHEN PRACTICABLE, TO DETERMINE THE IMMIGRATION STATUS OF THE PERSON. THE
25 PERSON'S IMMIGRATION STATUS SHALL BE VERIFIED WITH THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
26 PURSUANT TO 8 UNITED STATES CODE SECTION 1373(c).
A
reasonable attempt when practicable. Furthermore, it says that a verification of status "shall" be made with the Federal government. It does not say that a person needs to be hauled off to jail to do it.
So, if the person is indeed a citizen and can provide their name and DOB, Driver's license/I.D. number, SSN, or some other means of verifying who they are through dispatch or an MDT or whatever, then the person can easily be leeft to go about their buisness.
The police simply are not going to have time to haul every single person (or even every hispanic person) without ID on their person in to the station, especially in smaller departments.