Economy
How Stop-and-Frisk Is Creating a Generation of Young People Who Don't Trust the Police
Only 40 percent of young minorities in low-income New York City neighborhoods say they would feel comfortable calling 911 if they needed help.
In the fall of 2011, researchers with the Vera Institute of Justice interviewed 474 New Yorkers ages 18 to 25, each of whom had been stopped at least once by the NYPD and who lived "in highly patrolled, high-crime areas." At the same time, Vera also sought out another group of interview subjects: 42 people ages 13 to 21. They spoke to these teens as well as their parents or caregivers.
What the group found was pretty shocking: 71 percent of these combined young adult and teen interviewees had been stopped and frisked; 64 percent had been stopped, frisked, and searched; only 40 percent of them said they would feel comfortable calling the police if they needed help; and only 25 percent would report someone for committing a crime.