The human physiological defense against common pathogens (such as Pneumocystis) is mainly the responsibility of the immune system with help by some of the body's normal flora and fauna. However, if the immune system or "good" microbiota are damaged in any way (such as by chemotherapy, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), or antibiotics being taken to kill other pathogens), pathogenic bacteria that were being held at bay can proliferate and cause harm to the host. Such cases are called opportunistic infections.
Some pathogens (such as the bacterium Yersinia pestis, which may have caused the Black Plague, the Variola virus, and the malaria
protozoa) have been responsible for massive numbers of casualties and
have had numerous effects on afflicted groups. Of particular note in
modern times is HIV, which is known to have infected several million
humans globally, along with the influenza virus. Today, while many medical advances have been made to safeguard against infection by pathogens, through the use of vaccination, antibiotics, and fungicide, pathogens continue to threaten human life. Social advances such as food safety, hygiene, and water treatment have reduced the threat from some pathogens.
Fungi comprise a eukaryotic kingdom of microbes that are usually saprophytes,
but can cause diseases in humans. Life-threatening fungal infections in
humans most often occur in immunocompromised patients or vulnerable
people with a weakened immune system, although fungi are common problems
in the immunocompetent population as the causative agents of skin,
nail, or yeast infections. Most antibiotics that function on bacterial
pathogens cannot be used to treat fungal infections because fungi and
their hosts both have eukaryotic cells. Most clinical fungicides belong
to the azole group. The typical fungal spore size is 1-40 micrometers in length.
Other parasites
Some eukaryotic organisms, such as protists and helminths, cause disease. One of the best known diseases caused by protists in the genus Plasmodium is malaria. These can range from 3-200 micrometers in length.
Animal pathogens are disease-causing agents of wild and domestic animal species, at times including humans.
Virulence
Virulence
(the tendency of a pathogen to cause damage to a host's fitness)
evolves when that pathogen can spread from a diseased host, despite that
host being very debilitated. An example is the malaria parasite, which
can spread from a person near death, by hitching a ride to a healthy
person on a mosquito that has bitten the diseased person. This is
called horizontal transmission in contrast to vertical transmission,
which tends to evolve symbiosis (after a period of high morbidity and
mortality in the population) by linking the pathogen's evolutionary
success to the evolutionary success of the host organism.
Transmission of pathogens occurs through many different routes,
including airborne, direct or indirect contact, sexual contact, through
blood, breast milk, or other body fluids, and through the fecal-oral
route. One of the primary pathways by which food or water become
contaminated is from the release of untreated sewage into a drinking water supply or onto cropland, with the result that people who eat or drink contaminated sources become infected. In developing countries, most sewage is discharged into the environment or on cropland; even in developed countries, periodic system failures result in sanitary sewer overflows.
In biology, a pathogen (Greek: πάθοςpathos "suffering", "passion" and -γενής -genēs "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is anything that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a germ.
The term pathogen came into use in the 1880s. Typically, the term is used to describe an infectiousmicroorganism or agent, such as a virus, bacterium, protozoan, prion, viroid, or fungus.
Small animals, such as certain kinds of worms and insect larvae, can
also produce disease. However, these animals are usually, in common
parlance, referred to as parasites rather than pathogens. The scientific study of microscopic organisms, including microscopic pathogenic organisms, is called microbiology, while the study of disease that may include these pathogens is called pathology. Parasitology, meanwhile, is the scientific study of parasites and the organisms that host them.
There are several pathways through which pathogens can invade a
host. The principal pathways have different episodic time frames, but soil
has the longest or most persistent potential for harboring a pathogen.
Diseases in humans that are caused by infectious agents are known as
pathogenic diseases, though not all diseases are caused by pathogens.
Some diseases, such as Huntington's disease, are caused by inheritance of abnormal genes.
Pathogenicity
Pathogenicity is the potential disease-causing capacity of pathogens. Pathogenicity is related to virulence in meaning, but some authorities have come to distinguish it as a qualitative term, whereas the latter is quantitative.
By this standard, an organism may be said to be pathogenic or
non-pathogenic in a particular context, but not "more pathogenic" than
another. Such comparisons are described instead in terms of relative
virulence. Pathogenicity is also distinct from the transmissibility of the virus, which quantifies the risk of infection.
A pathogen may be described in terms of its ability to produce toxins, enter tissue, colonize, hijack nutrients, and its ability to immunosuppress the host.
Context-dependent pathogenicity
It is common to speak of an entire species of bacteria as pathogenic when it is identified as the cause of a disease (cf. Koch's postulates).
However, the modern view is that pathogenicity depends on the
microbial ecosystem as a whole. A bacterium may participate in opportunistic infections in immunocompromised hosts, acquire virulence factors by plasmid
infection, become transferred to a different site within the host, or
respond to changes in the overall numbers of other bacteria present.
For example, infection of mesenteric lymph glands of mice with Yersinia can clear the way for continuing infection of these sites by Lactobacillus, possibly by a mechanism of "immunological scarring".
Related concepts
Virulence
Virulence (the tendency of a pathogen to reduce a host's fitness) evolves when a pathogen can spread from a diseased host, despite the host becoming debilitated. Horizontal transmission occurs between hosts of the same species, in contrast to vertical transmission, which tends to evolve toward symbiosis
(after a period of high morbidity and mortality in the population) by
linking the pathogen's evolutionary success to the evolutionary success
of the host organism. Evolutionary biology proposes that many pathogens evolve an optimal virulence
at which the fitness gained by increased replication rates is balanced
by trade-offs in reduced transmission, but the exact mechanisms
underlying these relationships remain controversial.
Transmission
Transmission of pathogens occurs through many different routes,
including airborne, direct or indirect contact, sexual contact, through
blood, breast milk, or other body fluids, and through the fecal-oral route.
Types of pathogens
Algae
Algae are single-celled eukaryotes
that are generally non-pathogenic although pathogenic varieties do
exist. Protothecosis is a disease found in dogs, cats, cattle, and
humans caused by a type of green alga known as prototheca that lacks
chlorophyll.
Bacteria
The vast majority of bacteria, which can range between 0.15 and 700 μM in length, are harmless or beneficial to humans. However, a relatively small list of pathogenic bacteria
can cause infectious diseases. Pathogenic bacteria have several ways
that they can cause disease. They can either directly affect the cells
of their host, produce endotoxins that damage the cells of their host,
or cause a strong enough immune response that the host cells are
damaged.
Fungi are eukaryotic organisms that can function as pathogens. There
are approximately 300 known fungi that are pathogenic to humans including Candida albicans, which is the most common cause of thrush, and Cryptococcus neoformans, which can cause a severe form of meningitis. The typical fungal spore size is <4 .7="" be="" but="" in="" larger.="" length="" m="" may="" p="" some="" spores="">
Prions
Prions are misfolded proteins that can transfer their misfolded state
to other normally folded proteins of the same type. They do not contain
any DNA or RNA and cannot replicate other than to convert already
existing normal proteins to the misfolded state. These abnormally folded
proteins are found characteristically in some diseases such as scrapie, bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad cow disease) and Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease.
Viroids
Not to be coinfused with Virusoid or Virus.
Viroids are the smallest infectious pathogens known. They are composed
solely of a short strand of circular, single-stranded RNA that has no
protein coating. All known viroids are inhabitants of higher plants, and
most cause diseases, whose respective economic importance on humans
vary widely.
Viruses
Viruses are small particles, typically between 20 and 300 nanometers in length,
containing RNA or DNA. Viruses require a host cell to replicate. Some
of the diseases that are caused by viral pathogens include smallpox, influenza, mumps, measles, chickenpox, ebola, HIV, rubella, and COVID-19.
Some eukaryotic organisms, including a number of protozoa and helminths, are human parasites.
Pathogen hosts
Bacteria
Although bacteria can be pathogens themselves, they can also be infected by pathogens. Bacteriophages
are viruses, also known as phage, that infect bacteria often leading to
the death of the bacteria that was infected. Common bacteriophage
include T7 and Lamda phage. There are bacteriophages that infect every kind of bacteria including both gram-negative and gram-positive. Even pathogenic bacteria that infect other species, including humans, can be infected with a phage.
Plants
Plants can play host to a wide range of pathogen types including viruses, bacteria, fungi, nematodes, and even other plants. Notable plant viruses include the Papaya ringspot virus which has caused millions of dollars of damage to farmers in Hawaii and Southeast Asia, and the Tobacco mosaic virus which caused scientist Martinus Beijerinck to coin the term "virus" in 1898. Bacterial plant pathogens are also a serious problem causing leaf spots, blights, and rots in many plant species. The top two bacterial pathogens for plants are P. syringae and R. solanacearum which cause leaf browning and other issues in potatoes, tomatoes, and bananas.
Fungi
are another major pathogen type for plants. They can cause a wide
variety of issues such as shorter plant height, growths or pits on tree
trunks, root or seed rot, and leaf spots. Common and serious plant fungi include the rice blast fungus, Dutch elm disease, chestnut blight and the black knot and brown rot
diseases of cherries, plums, and peaches. It is estimated that
pathogenic fungi alone cause up to a 65% reduction in crop yield.
Overall, plants have a wide array of pathogens and it has been
estimated that only 3% of the disease caused by plant pathogens can be
managed.
Animals
Animals
often get infected with many of the same or similar pathogens as humans
including prions, viruses, bacteria, and fungi. While wild animals
often get illnesses, the larger danger is for livestock animals. It is
estimated that in rural settings, 90% or more of livestock deaths can be
attributed to pathogens. The prion disease bovine spongiform encephalopathy, commonly known as Mad cow disease, is one of the few prion diseases that affect animals.
Other animal diseases include a variety of immunodeficiency disorders
that are caused by viruses related to the Human immunodeficiency virus
(HIV) including BIV and FIV.
Humans
Humans can be infected with many types of pathogens including prions,
viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Viruses and bacteria that infect humans
can cause symptoms such as sneezing, coughing, fever, vomiting, and even
lead to death. Some of these symptoms are caused by the virus itself,
while others are caused by the immune system of the infected person.
Treatment
Prion
Despite many attempts, to date no therapy has been shown to halt the progression of prion diseases.
Virus
A variety of prevention and treatment options exist for some viral pathogens. Vaccines are one common and effective preventive measure against a variety of viral pathogens.
Vaccines prime the immune system of the host, so that when the
potential host encounters the virus in the wild, the immune system can
defend against infection quickly. Vaccines exist for viruses such as the
measles, mumps, and rubella viruses and the influenza virus. Some viruses such as HIV, dengue, and chikungunya do not have vaccines available.
Treatment of viral infections often involves treating the
symptoms of the infection rather than providing any medication that
affects the viral pathogen itself.
Treating the symptoms of a viral infection gives the host immune system
time to develop antibodies against the viral pathogen which will then
clear the infection. In some cases, treatment against the virus is
necessary. One example of this is HIV where antiretroviral therapy, also known as ART or HAART, is needed to prevent immune cell loss and the progression into AIDS.
Bacteria
Much like viral pathogens, infection by certain bacterial pathogens can be prevented via vaccines. Vaccines against bacterial pathogens include the anthrax vaccine and the pneumococcal vaccine.
Many other bacterial pathogens lack vaccines as a preventive measure,
but infection by these bacteria can often be treated or prevented with antibiotics. Common antibiotics include amoxicillin, ciprofloxacin, and doxycycline.
Each antibiotic has different bacteria that it is effective against and
has different mechanisms to kill that bacteria. For example, doxycycline inhibits the synthesis of new proteins in both gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria which leads to the death of the affected bacteria.
Due in part to over-prescribing antibiotics in circumstances
where they are not needed, some bacterial pathogens have developed
antibiotic resistance and are becoming hard to treat with classical
antibiotics. A genetically distinct strain of Staphylococcus aureus called MRSA
is one example of a bacterial pathogen that is difficult to treat with
common antibiotics. A report released in 2013 by the Center for Disease
Control (CDC) estimated that each year in the United States, at least 2
million people get an antibiotic-resistant bacterial infection, and at
least 23,000 people die from those infections.
Due to their indispensability in Bacteria, essential persistent
DNA methyltransferases are potential targets for the development of
epigenetic inhibitors capable of, for example, enhance the therapeutic
activity of antimicrobials , or decrease a pathogen's virulence.
Fungi
Infection by fungal pathogens is treated with anti-fungal medication. Fungal infections such as athlete's foot, jock itch, and ringworm are infections of the skin and can be treated with topical anti-fungal medications like Clotrimazole. Other common fungal infections include infections by the yeast strain Candida albicans. Candida can cause infections of the mouth or throat, commonly referred to as thrush, or it can cause vaginal infections.
These internal infections can either be treated with anti-fungal creams
or with oral medication. Common anti-fungal drugs for internal
infections include the Echinocandin family of drugs and Fluconazole.
Algae
Algae are commonly not thought of as pathogens, but the genus Prototheca is known to cause disease in humans. Treatment for this kind of infection is currently under investigation and there is no consistency in clinical treatment.
Viruses may also undergo sexual interaction when two or more viral genomes
enter the same host cell. This process involves pairing of homologous
genomes and recombination between them by a process referred to as
multiplicity reactivation. Examples of viruses that undergo this
process are herpes simplex virus, human immunodeficiency virus, and vaccinia virus.
The sexual processes in bacteria, microbial eukaryotes, and
viruses all involve recombination between homologous genomes that
appears to facilitate the repair of genomic damage to the pathogens caused by the defenses of their respective target hosts.
The stop-question-and-frisk program, or stop-and-frisk, in New York City, is a New York City Police Department practice of temporarily detaining, questioning, and at times searching civilians and suspects on the street for weapons and other contraband. This is what is known in other places in the United States as the Terry stop. The rules for the policy are contained in the state's criminal procedure law section 140.50 and based on the decision of the US Supreme Court in the case of Terry v. Ohio.
In 2016, a reported 12,404 stops were made under the
stop-and-frisk program. The stop-and-frisk program has previously taken
place on a much wider scale. Between 2003 and 2013, over 100,000 stops
were made per year, with 685,724 people being stopped at the height of
the program in 2011. The program became the subject of a racial profiling controversy. Ninety percent of those stopped in 2017 were African-American or Latino, mostly aged 14–24. Seventy percent of those stopped were later found to be innocent. By contrast, 54.1% of the population of New York City in 2010 was African-American or Latino; however, 74.4% of individuals arrested overall were of those two racial groups.
Research shows that "persons of African and Hispanic descent were
stopped more frequently than whites, even after controlling for
precinct variability and race-specific estimates of crime
participation." According to the Washington Post fact-checker, the claim that stop-and-frisk contributed to a decline in the crime rate is unsubstantiated.
Legal background of stop-and-frisk
Stops by NYPD
Year
Stops
2002
97,296
2003
160,851
2004
313,523
2005
398,191
2006
506,491
2007
472,096
2008
540,302
2009
581,168
2010
601,285
2011
685,724
2012
532,911
2013
191,851
2014
45,787
2015
22,565
2016
12,404
2017
11,629
2018
11,008
2019
13,459
The United States Supreme Court made an important ruling on the use of stop-and-frisk in the 1968 case Terry v. Ohio, hence why the stops are also referred to as Terry stops.
While frisks were arguably illegal, until then, a police officer could
search only someone who had been arrested, unless a search warrant had
been obtained. In the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and Peters v. New York,
the Supreme Court granted limited approval in 1968 to frisks conducted
by officers lacking probable cause for an arrest in order to search for
weapons if the officer suspects the subject to be armed and presently
dangerous. The Court's decision made suspicion of danger to an officer
grounds for a "reasonable search."
In the early 1980s, if a police officer had reasonable suspicion
of a possible crime, he or she had the authority to stop someone and ask
questions. If, based on the subject's answers, the suspicion level did
not escalate to probable cause for an arrest, the person would be
released immediately. That was only a "stop-and-question". The "frisk"
part of the equation did not come into play except on two cases: if
possession of a weapon was suspected, or reasonable suspicion of a
possible crime escalated to probable cause to arrest for an actual crime
based on facts developed after the initial stop-and-question. That all
changed in the 1990s, when CompStat was developed under then-Police Commissioner William Bratton. High-ranking police officials widely incorporated the "stop, question and frisk".
Use of stop-and-frisk is often associated with "broken windows" policing.
According to the "broken windows theory," low-level crime and disorder
creates an environment that encourages more serious crimes. Among the
key proponents of the theory are George L. Kelling and William Bratton, who was Chief of the New York City Transit Police from 1990 to 1992 and Commissioner of the New York City Police Department from 1994 to 1996. Mayor Rudy Giuliani
hired Bratton for the latter job and endorsed broken windows policing.
Giuliani and Bratton presided over an expansion of the New York police
department and a crackdown on low-level crimes, including fare evasion, public drinking, public urination, graffiti artists, and "squeegee men" (who had been wiping windshields of stopped cars and aggressively demanding payment).
Bratton and Kelling argue that stop-and-frisk has been wrongly conflated with broken windows policing.
They argue that stop-and-frisk is a short-term tactic for preventing a
potential crime, whereas broken windows policing is a long-term tactic
that requires the police to engage with communities.
Measurement of stop-and-frisk in New York City
In
2002, there were 97,296 "stop-and-frisk" stops made by New York police
officers; 82.4% resulted in no fines or convictions. The number of stops
increased dramatically in 2008 to over half a million, 88% of which did
not result in any fine or conviction, peaking in 2011 to 685,724 stops,
again with 88% (603,437) resulting in no conviction. Leading to the
remaining 82,287 resulting in convictions. On average, from 2002 to
2013, the number of individuals stopped without any convictions was
87.6%.
Part of the stop-question-and-frisk program is executed under
Operation Clean Halls, a program in which private property owners grant
officers prior permission to enter a property for enforcement against
criminal activity.
Some NYPD officers have objected publicly to the department's use of stop-question-and-frisk paperwork as a performance metric,
which they claim encourages officers to overuse the practice and
creates public hostility. Activists have accused the NYPD of encouraging
stops through quotas,
which department representatives have denied. In the vast majority of
cases, no evidence of wrongdoing is found, and the stopped person is let
go.
Controversy regarding misuse and claims of racial profiling
Demonstrators protest racial bias in policing, marching to then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg's house on June 17, 2012
New York police officer Adrian Schoolcraft
made extensive recordings in 2008 and 2009, which documented orders
from NYPD officials to search and arrest black people in the
Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood. Schoolcraft, who brought accusations of
misconduct to NYPD investigators, was transferred to a desk job and
then involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital. In 2010,
Schoolcraft sent his tapes to the Village Voice, which publicized
them in a series of reports. Schoolcraft alleges that the NYPD has
retaliated against him for exposing information about the stop-and-frisk
policy. The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), LatinoJustice PRLDEF, and The Bronx Defenders filed a federal class action against this program.
In response to allegations that the program unfairly targets African-American and Hispanic-American individuals, then-Mayor Michael Bloomberg
has stated that it is because African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans
are more likely to be violent criminals and victims of violent crime.
On June 17, 2012, several thousand people marched silently down Manhattan's Fifth Avenue from lower Harlem to Bloomberg's Upper East Side townhouse in protest of the stop-question-and-frisk policy. The mayor refused to end the program, contending that the program reduces crime and saves lives.
In early July 2012, stop-question-and-frisk protesters who
videotaped police stops in New York City were targeted by police for
their activism. A "wanted"-style poster hung in a police precinct
headquarters, without any allegation of criminal activity, accused one
couple of being "professional agitators" whose "purpose is to portray
officers in a negative way and too [sic] deter officers from conducting their responsibilities."
Police officers later surveilled and recorded the exit of persons from a
"stop stop-and-frisk" meeting held at the couple's residence, allegedly
in response to an emergency call of loitering and trespass.
In October 2012, The Nation published an obscenity-filled
audio recording that revealed two NYPD officers conducting a hostile and
racially charged stop-and-frisk of an innocent teenager from Harlem.
Following its upload, the recording soon turned viral, as it triggered
outrage and "shed unprecedented light" on the practice of
stop-and-frisk.
In June 2013, in an interview with WOR Radio,
Michael Bloomberg responded to claims that the program
disproportionately targeted minorities. Bloomberg argued that the data
should be assessed based on murder suspects' descriptions and not the
population as a whole. Bloomberg explained:
One newspaper and one news service,
they just keep saying ‘oh it’s a disproportionate percentage of a
particular ethnic group.’ That may be, but it’s not a disproportionate
percentage of those who witnesses and victims describe as committing the
[crime]. In that case, incidentally, I think we disproportionately stop
whites too much and minorities too little.
In February 2020, an audio recording surfaced of Michael Bloomberg defending the program at a February 2015 Aspen Institute event. In the speech, Bloomberg said:
Ninety-five percent of murders-
murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the
description, Xerox it, and pass it out to all the cops. They are male,
minorities, 16-25. That’s true in New York, that’s true in virtually
every city (inaudible). And that’s where the real crime is. You’ve got
to get the guns out of the hands of people that are getting killed. So
you want to spend the money on a lot of cops in the streets. Put those
cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods.
So one of the unintended consequences is people say, ‘Oh my God, you are
arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.’ Yes, that’s
true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes,
that’s true. Why do we do it? Because that’s where all the crime is. And
the way you get the guns out of the kids’ hands is to throw them up
against the wall and frisk them… And then they start… ‘Oh I don’t want
to get caught.’ So they don’t bring the gun. They still have a gun, but
they leave it at home.
Class-action lawsuit brought by Center for Constitutional Rights
In Floyd v. City of New York, decided on August 12, 2013, US District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that stop-and-frisk had been used in an unconstitutional manner and directed the police to adopt a written policy to specify where such stops are authorized.Scheindlin appointed Peter L. Zimroth, a former chief lawyer for the City of New York, to oversee the program. Mayor Bloomberg indicated that the city will appeal the ruling.
Scheindlin had denied pleas for a stay in her remediation of the
policing policy, saying that "Ordering a stay now would send precisely
the wrong signal. It would essentially confirm that the past
practices... were justified and based on constitutional police
practices. It would also send the message that reducing the number of
stops is somehow dangerous to the residents of this city."
On October 31, 2013, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
blocked the order requiring changes to the New York Police Department's
stop-and-frisk program and removed Judge Shira Scheindlin from the
case. On November 9, 2013, the city asked a federal appeals court to vacate Scheindlin's orders. On November 22, 2013, the federal appellate court rejected the city's motion for a stay of the judge's orders.
On July 30, 2014, Southern District Court Judge Analisa Torres
denied the police unions' motions to intervene and granted the proposed
modification of the District Court's August 2013 remedial decision. A week later, the City of New York filed a motion to withdraw its appeal. On August 13, 2014, the Second Circuit announced the cases would be argued on October 15, 2014.
On October 31, a three-judge panel on the Second Circuit unanimously
ruled against the unions and allowed the city to proceed with its
overhaul of the police department.
Settlement of lawsuit and political ramifications
A
record 685,724 stops were made under the program in 2011; however, the
number of stops made has been reduced in every year since then. A major
turning point was the 2013 court case Floyd v. City of New York and a subsequent NYPD mandate that requires officers to thoroughly justify the reason for making a stop. In 2013, 191,558 stops were made.
Stop-and-frisk was an issue in the 2013 mayoral election. The race to succeed Bloomberg was won by Democratic Party candidate Bill de Blasio,
who had pledged to reform the stop-and-frisk program, called for new
leadership at the NYPD, an inspector general, and a strong racial
profiling bill.
The number of stops continued to decrease over the next two years. In August 2014, Newsweek reported while stop-and-frisk numbers were down, they still happen disproportionately in New York City's African-American and Latino neighborhoods. In 2015, only 22,565 stops were made.
Class-action lawsuit brought by Bronx Defenders
On September 5th 2019, a New York judge granted class-action status to a case brought by The Bronx Defenders on behalf of individuals affected by stop-and-frisk.
The lawyers attest that records of individuals who underwent
stop-and-frisk were retained by police, despite the law requiring that
those records be sealed.
The arrestees had cases which were downgraded to non-criminal status,
dropped, declined by prosecutors, or thrown out by court.
Despite this, personal information such as arrest reports, mugshots,
details about appearance, and residential addresses remained in law
enforcement databases.
These records were used to increase the charges of individuals
later arrested for unrelated crimes, and also continue to be used by the
NYPD facial recognition database to track down suspects.
The politics of stop-and-frisk
Opposition
Opponents of the program have complained that it is racist and failed to reduce robbery, burglary, or other crime.
As Manhattan Borough President, current New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer argued that the program constitutes harassment of blacks and Latinos because it is disproportionately directed at them.
The NYC Bar Association casts doubt on whether police were
applying the "reasonable suspicion" rule when making stops: "The sheer
volume of stops that result in no determination of wrongdoing raise the
question of whether police officers are consistently adhering to the
constitutional requirement for reasonable suspicion for stops and
frisks."
In a January 2018 op-ed in the National Review,
conservative writer Kyle Smith said that the steep decline in New York
City's crime rate since the reduction in the use of stop-and-frisk had
shown him that he was wrong about stop-and-frisk; Smith had earlier
argued that reducing stop-and-frisk would increase the crime rate.
Support
Paul J.
Browne, an NYPD spokesman, defended the practice, saying "stops save
lives, especially in communities disproportionately affected by crime,
and especially among young men of color who last year represented 90
percent of murder victims and 96 percent of shooting victims in New York
City."
Then-mayor Michael Bloomberg
defended the aspect of stopping young black and Hispanic men at rates
that "do not reflect the city’s overall census numbers", saying that
"the proportion of stops generally reflects our crime numbers does not
mean, as the judge wrongly concluded, that the police are engaged in
racial profiling; it means they are stopping people in those communities
who fit descriptions of suspects or are engaged in suspicious
activity."
Heather Mac Donald
denied that African Americans are being stopped too often and claimed
the opposite: "The actual crime rates reveal that blacks are being
significantly understopped, compared with their representation in the
city's criminal population." NYC Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly
wrote, "the statistics reinforce what crime numbers have shown for
decades: that blacks in this city were disproportionately the victims of
violent crime, followed by Hispanics. Their assailants were
disproportionally black and Hispanic too."
Stop-and-frisk became an issue in the 2016 presidential election, with Donald Trump attributing a nonexistent increase in murders in New York to the reduction of stop-and-frisk.
Advocates for a small-scale program
Bratton and Kelling both argue that stop-and-frisk is a useful tool that must be used in moderation. In a joint article in late 2014, they wrote that a Terry
stop is "one of the key means to detect and prevent crimes in progress"
and "an important tool in street policing", while also supporting
efforts to reduce its use. Bratton agreed it was causing tension with ethnic communities and that it was less needed in an era of lower crime.
Impact
Racial discrimination
A 2007 study in the Journal of the American Statistical Association
found that under the stop-and-frisk policy, "persons of African and
Hispanic descent were stopped more frequently than whites, even after
controlling for precinct variability and race-specific estimates of
crime participation."
Crime
A 2012 study finds few effects of stop-and-frisk on robbery and burglary rates in New York between 2003 and 2010. According to the Washington Post fact-checker, the claim that stop-and-frisk contributed to a decline in the crime rate is unsubstantiated.
A 2016 study found no evidence that stop-and-frisk was effective. One of the authors of that study, Jeffrey Fagan
of Columbia University, said that "you can achieve really very positive
crime control, reductions in crime, if you do stops using those
probable-cause standards. If you just leave it up to the officers, based
on their hunches, then they have almost no effect on crime."
Fagan "found stops based on probable cause standards of criminal
behavior were associated with a 5–9 percent decline in NYC crime in
census block groups."
Another 2016 study found that stop-and-frisk lowered crime, and
that the size of the effect was "significant yet modest". The authors
also noted that "the level of SQFs needed to produce meaningful crime
reductions are costly in terms of police time and are potentially
harmful to police legitimacy."
A 2017 study also reported that stop-and-frisk was associated with
modest crime reductions, and cautioned against drawing strong causal
conclusions.
A 2017 study in The Journal of Politics
found that the introduction of a mandate in 2013 that officers provide
thorough justifications for stopping suspects led to far fewer stops,
far fewer detainments of innocent people and increased the ratio of
stops that ultimately produced evidence of the crime that the police
stopped the suspect for.
Economy
One
study, controlling for relevant factors, finds "that properties exposed
to more intense Stop & Frisk activity sold for significantly lower
price."
Police officers interact with the public in Des Moines, Iowa, during Police Week 2010.
Community policing, or community-oriented policing (COP), is a strategy of policing that focuses on building ties and working closely with members of the communities. A formal definition states:
Community policing is a philosophy of full service
personalized policing, where the same officer patrols and works in the
same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a
proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems.
—Bertus Ferreira
The central goal of community policing is for the police to build
relationships with the community through interactions with local
agencies and members of the public, creating partnerships and strategies
for reducing crime and disorder. Although community policing mostly targets low-level crime and disorder, the broken windows theory proposes that this can reduce more serious crime as well.
Community policing is related to problem-oriented policing and intelligence-led policing,
and contrasts with reactive policing strategies which were predominant
in the late 20th century. It does not eliminate the need for reactive
policing, although successful prevention can reduce the need for the
latter. Many police forces have teams that focus specifically on
community policing, such as Neighbourhood Policing Teams in the United Kingdom, which are separate from the more centralized units that respond to emergencies.
The overall assessment of community-oriented policing is
positive, as both officers and community members attest to its
effectiveness in reducing crime and raising the sense of security in a
community.
History
Robert Peel's ideas about policing are sometimes considered a precursor to modern community policing.
Some authors have traced the core values of community policing to certain original 1829 Peelian Principles, most notably John Alderson, the former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police.
These included the ideas that the police needed to seek "the
co-operation of the public" and prioritize crime prevention. The term
"community policing" came into use in the late 20th century and, then, only as a response to a preceding philosophy of police organization.
In the early 20th century, the rise of automobiles, telecommunications and suburbanization transformed how the police operated.
Police forces moved to using a reactive strategy versus a proactive
approach, focusing on answering emergency calls as quickly as possible
and relying on motor vehicle patrols to deter crime. Some police forces such as the Chicago Police Department began rotating officers between different neighborhoods as a measure to prevent corruption,
and, as a result, foot patrols became rare. These changes significantly
altered the nature of police presence in many neighborhoods.
By the 1960s, many countries such as the United States were
looking for ways to repair relations between police forces and racial
minorities. For example, in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson
appointed a Blue Ribbon committee to study the apparent distrust with
the police by many community members, especially along racial lines.
The resulting report, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice
suggested the development of a new type of police officer which would
act as a community liaison and work to build bridges between law
enforcement and minority populations. Furthermore, the Kansas City preventive patrol experiment provided evidence that aimless motor patrols were not an effective deterrent to crime. Similarly, by 1981, a study by the US-based Police Foundation
suggested that police officers spent so much time on response duties
and in cars that they had become isolated from their communities.
In response to some of these problems, many police departments in the
United States began experimenting with what would become known as
"community policing".
Research by Michigan criminal justice academics and practitioners started being published as early as the 1980s.As a professor of criminal justice, Bob Trajanowcz in the late 1990s
influenced many future law enforcement leaders on how to implement
elements of community policing.
One experiment in Flint, Michigan, involved foot patrol officers be
assigned to a specific geographic area to help reduce crime in hot
spots. Community-oriented policing was promoted by the Clinton
Administration. The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act established the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the Justice Department and provided funding to promote community policing.
Kenneth Peak has argued that community policing in the United
States has evolved through three generations: innovation (1979 to 1986),
diffusion (1987 to 1994) and institutionalization (1995 to present
day). The innovationperiod
occurred following the civil unrest of the 1960s, in large part as an
attempt to identify alternatives to the reactive methods developed in
mid-century. This era was also saw the development of such programs as
the broken windows theory and problem-oriented policing. The diffusion era
followed, in which larger departments began to integrate aspects of
community policing, often through grants that initiated specialized
units. Lastly, the institutionalization era introduced mass application of community policing programs, in not only large departments but also smaller and more rural ones.
Method
Police officers and PCSOs of West Midlands Police prepare to go on cycle patrol. Community meetings were used to decide which areas needed patrolling the most.
Police in Strasbourg, France. Community policing movements have led to a revival of foot patrols.
Many community-oriented police structures focus on assigning officers
to a specific area called a “beat”, those officers become familiar with
that area through a process of “beat profiling.” The officers are then
taught how to design specific patrol strategies to deal with the types
of crime that are experienced in that beat.
These ideas are implemented in a multi-pronged approach using a
variety of aspects, such as broadening the duties of the police officer
and individualizing the practices to the community they're policing;
refocusing police efforts to face-to-face interactions in smaller patrol
areas with an emphasized goal of preventing criminal activity instead
of responding to it; solving problems using input from the community
they're policing; and, finally, making an effort to increase
service-oriented positive interactions with police.
Common methods of community-policing include:
Encouraging the community to help prevent crime by providing advice, giving talks at schools, encouraging neighborhood watch groups, and a variety of other techniques.
Increased use of foot or bicycle patrols.
Increased officer accountability to the communities they are supposed to serve.
Creating teams of officers to carry out community policing in designated neighborhoods.
Clear communication between the police and the communities about their objectives and strategies.
Partnerships with other organizations such as government agencies,
community members, nonprofit service providers, private businesses and
the media.
Decentralizing the police authority, allowing more discretion
amongst lower-ranking officers, and more initiative expected from them.
Comparison with traditional policing
Although all societies incorporate some mechanisms of social control, "policing" as we understand it today is a very particular mechanism of control.
"Traditional policing" is used to describe policing styles that were
predominant before modern community policing movements, or in police
forces which have not adopted them. The response-centred style has also
been called "fire brigade policing" in the UK. In countries with a tradition of policing by consent,
the term "traditional policing" can be misleading. In those cases,
community policing could be seen as a restoration of an earlier
ideology, which had been overshadowed by reactive policing after the
rise of automobiles and telecommunications.
The goal of traditional policing is to protect law-abiding
citizens from criminals. As Jauregui argues, it reflects a "popular
desire for justice and order through any means necessary."
They do this by identifying and apprehending criminals while gathering
enough evidence to convict them. Traditional beat officers' focus on
duty is to respond to incidents swiftly, and clear emergency calls as
quickly as possible. Many officers working busy shifts only have time to
respond to and clear emergency calls. This type of policing does not
stop or reduce crime significantly; it is simply a temporary fix to a
chronic problem where officers are often called to return to the same
issue and individuals.
In contrast, community policing's main goal is to assist the
public in establishing and maintaining a safe, orderly social
environment. While apprehending criminals is one important goal of
community policing, it is not necessarily the most important goal.
Community policing is concerned with solving the crimes that the
community is concerned about by working with and gaining support from
the community. The most effective solutions include dialogue between
police, government resources, citizens, and local business to address
the problems affecting the community.
Police communicate with the community in variety of ways, including
polls or surveys, town meetings, call-in programs, and meetings with
interest groups. They use these connections to understand what the
community wants out of its police officers and what the community is
willing to do to solve its crime problem.
The structure of the community policing organization differs in
that police assets are refocused with the goals of specific, written
rules to give more creative problem-solving techniques to the police
officer to provide alternatives to traditional law enforcement.
In Nordic countries and Camden, NJ
Journalist Ryan Cooper
described law enforcement in Nordic countries in terms that seem
consistent with community policing. In 2013 the city of Camden, NJ,
with support from the New Jersey state government, disbanded their city
police and hired some of the officers back at lower pay into new Camden County Police Department, following examples in Nordic countries.
Camden had previously had appallingly high crime rates, which have
reportedly declined dramatically since the change, presumably because
more people are more likely to report crime and cooperate with law
enforcement.
In high conflict zones like Afghanistan
D. Scott Mann,
retired U.S. Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel, claims that his troops
made substantial progress against insurgents in places like Afghanistan
and Columbia by embedding themselves in local, remote communities and
working hard to actually protect the locals from insurgents. They were
not resisted when they initially arrive, but they were also not
initially welcomed. After locals saw Mann's special forces working to
understand their concerns and bleeding with them during attacks by
insurgents, the locals begin to trust Mann's special forces and provide
information about the insurgents that helped reduce the level of
violence and make law enforcement easier.
Community alienation
The experience of community alienation among police officers is closely tied to the experience of mastery,
the state of mind in which an individual feels autonomous and
experiences confidence in their ability, skill, and knowledge to control
or influence external events.
Community policing requires departments to flatten their organizational
pyramid and place even more decision-making and discretion in the hands
of line officers. As the level of community alienation or isolation
that officers experience increases, there will be a corresponding
decrease in officers' sense of mastery in carrying out their expanded
discretionary role. Second, a strong sense of community integration for
police officers would seem to be vital to the core community policing
focus of proactive law enforcement. Proactive enforcement is usually
defined as the predisposition of police officers to be actively
committed to crime prevention, community problem-solving, and a more
open, dynamic quality-oriented law enforcement-community partnership.
A lack of community support resulted in an increased sense of alienation and a greater degree of apathy among police officers.
A lack of community support and working in a larger populated community
was associated with an increased sense of alienation and a greater
degree of inactivity among police officers.
An increased sense of alienation resulted in a greater degree of
negative feelings and lethargy among police officers. The more police
officers felt socially isolated from the community they served, the more
they withdrew and the more negative they felt towards its citizens.
Community policing is more complicated than simply comparing
crime rates and there is no universally-accepted criteria for evaluating
community policing. However, there are some structures that are
commonly used. One possible way to determine whether or not community
policing is effective in an area is for officers and key members of the
community to set a specific mission and goals when starting out. Once
specific goals are set, participation at every level is essential in
obtaining commitment and achieving goals. Street-level officers,
supervisors, executives, and the entire community should feel the goals
represent what they want their police department to accomplish.
The U.S. federal government continues to provide support for
incorporating community policing into local law enforcement practices
through funding of research such as through the National Center for
Community Policing at Michigan State University, small COPS grants to local agencies, and technical assistance.
The Center For Evidence-Based Crime Policy in George Mason University identifies the following randomized controlled trials on community policing as very rigorous.
Criticisms
Criminologists
have raised several concerns vis-a-vis community policing and its
implementation. On the broadest conceptual level, many legal scholars
have highlighted that the term "community," at the heart of "community
policing," is in itself ambiguous. Without a universal definition of the word, it is difficult to define what "community policing" should look like.
Others have remained skeptical of the political ambition behind community policing initiatives. For example, in 1984 Peter Waddington
cautioned that the "largely uncritical acceptance with which [the
notion of community policing] has been welcomed is itself a danger. Any
proposal, however attractive, should be subjected to careful and
skeptical scrutiny."In particular, Waddington voiced concern that community policing was
merely a restoration of the "bobby on the beat" concept, which had
nostalgic appeal because it was less impersonal than the officer
"flashing past" in a police car. He said that the former was a "romantic
delusion", because "there was never a time when the police officer was
everyone's friend, and there will never be such a time in the future."
He also believed that order could only be maintained by the community
itself, and not by the police alone. Similarly, C. B. Klockars and
David Bayley both argue that community policing is unlikely to bring
fundamental change to how police officers work, with Klockars calling it
"mainly a rhetorical device".
Unlike Klockars, Steven Herbert believe that community policing is
proposing a fundamental change to policing, but argues that it would be a
difficult one to achieve. He argues the progressive and democratic
ethos of shared governance inherent in community policing runs counter
to central elements in police culture and more widespread understandings
of crime and punishment.
Charles P. McDowell argued in 1993 that because community policing was a
radical departure from existing ideology, implementing it would take
time.
Yet another set of criticisms revolves around the potential
efficacy of community policing. David Bayley has argued that enacting
community policing policies may lead to a reduction in crime control
effectiveness, maintenance of order in the face of violence, increase in
bureaucratic and governmental power over community affairs, increases
in unequal treatment, and an erosion of constitutional rights. According to Stenson,
there is a major dilemma within community policing: when practicing
community policing, police officers have the tendency of getting too
involved with trying to institute "particularistic community normative
standards". This in turn could be problematic, in that it could entice
corruption or vigilantism.
.jpg)
