Living in a Stop and Frisk World

Living in a Stop and Frisk World Today around 1,400 citizens in New York City will have their constitutional rights violated through an unlawful search. The legal term for the controversial search is stop and frisk. The New York Police Department continues to pressure its officers to stop and frisk citizens, and these situations are happening at an alarmingly increasing rate. For the New York Police Department, it seems to be a game of numbers as they continue to force their officers to conduct stop and frisks through quotas (Gangi).While New York City has seen a decrease in crime over Mayor Bloomberg's term, it is difficult to directly correlate the stop and frisk policy with these decreases. This unlawful practice needs to stop as it is a controversial practice that many people believe is a direct violation of the human rights inherent for citizens. Furthermore, it could turn New York City into a police state. If an officer does not fill his monthly quota of stops, summons or arres ts, he is subject to discipline (Gangi). Often, this discipline will leave a unsettling paper trail behind the officer and prevent them from being able to move up in the ranking.This commonality has been explained by many New York Police Department officers confidentially in, â€Å"The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD's Stop-and-Frisk. † Last year, nearly 686,000 people were stopped on the street; a startling increase from only 97,000 in 2002. This amounts to a 600% increase in stops in less than ten years, and searches will continue to increase as the police department tries to keep these numbers up every year (Gangi). Factually speaking, the number has increased every single year since Mayor Bloomberg took office (Long).Crime is down, but can it accurately be attributed to an increase of stop and frisks? Stop and frisk can not be directly and certainly not solely attributed to the decrease of crime. Additionally, stop and frisk is highly subject to racial pr ofiling. Both Tuttle of TheNation. com and Lieberman of New York Civil Liberties Union agree that the stop and frisk program is a waste of resources, explaining its high failure rate: â€Å"the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program continues to have a 90 percent failure rate. It remains a tremendous waste of resources, sows mistrust between police and he communities they serve, and routinely violates fundamental rights. (Zelon)† These are key reasons why New York City is the only large metropolis using stop and frisk as their main crime deterrent. It is an aggressive practice that ruins the relationship between the community and police department (Gangi). Ruthless practices such as stop and frisk are alienating the minority communities and terrorizing the youth. Police have admitted to targeting areas where crime is highest, but the stop and frisk approach ruins any opportunity for help from the community directly.These officers are stationed in parts of New York City that the y are disconnected from outside of work. The community knows their area best, yet the officers garner little respect amongst the community. When a community member sees something, they are less likely to say anything to the abusive New York Police Department (Eterno). Furthermore, this puts the officers in much more danger and results in a much more aggressive and assertive force as a result. Not to mention, community members are more willing to follow the law if they believe the system is fair and equal.Sociologist Tom Tyler’s research on this matter has concluded that people often obey laws in which they consider fair and legitimate; these stop and frisk police encounters are seens as unfair and racial (Braid). Community policing is a key aspect to crime fighting, and both Washington and Los Angeles have made it a main focus of their crime stopping strategy. From 2002 to 2012, New York City has had a 12% decrease in murders annually, and during the same period, Washington s aw a 43% decrease and Los Angeles had a 50% decrease in murders.Both cities have taken a less aggressive approach and focused on a less aggressive community driven strategy. Unlike New York City, these cities focus on building up communities and targeting key violent factors (Gangi). Being apart of the community as a police officer lets you work with community members living within the area and target the direct source of violence and crime. Truants within the community are at the highest risk of becoming juvenile offenders. With such hatred from the ommunity, the police department does not get information or leads about these truants until they’re in police hands for committing a crime . Not to mention, these communities become so violent due to only 2 or 3% of the population (Baird). Additionally, as the officers continue to press the streets, they are unable to work with the communities and violence ensues once again. Breaking these community lines is a waste of resources and is costing taxpayers millions of dollars every year.This policy is not only harming and scaring our youth, but it’s estimated that for every 100,000 stops it costs the taxpayers of New York 10 million dollars (Howell). Last year, New York City and the New York Police Department stopped over 650,000 people and accumulated hundreds of lawsuits for its racial and aggressive tactics (Tuttle). Under the law, suspects must appear to be committing a crime or about to commit a crime. Unfortunately, Judge Shira A. Scheindlin has uncovered â€Å"overwhelming evidence that there in fact exists a centralized stop and frisk program that has led to thousands of unlawful stops. Eterno)† Thousands of stops being performed unlawfully will turn into suits against the City of New York. Taxpayers do not want to pay for a program that is constitutionally illegal, has an extremely high failure rate and publicly targets minorities. Since New York City is the largest city in the United St ates, the police department should be a role model for other cities. Instead, the New York Police Department actively practices racial profiling, working against communities rather than in conjunction with them.At first, the aggressive stop and frisk program lowered illegal guns on the street. More recently, however, Mayor Bloomberg has taken it too far by turning the program into a regulated, quota-driven exercise that has effectively used racial profiling and intimidation as a scare tactic against minorities. If New York City is to be proactive in lowering its crime rate, it ought to focus on building communities, endorsing community leaders, and no longer allowing its Police Department to engage in the controversial stop and frisk program.

Amaranth Advisors

Amaranth Advisors LLC was created in 2000 as a multi-strategy hedge fund with approximately $600 million in capital. It sought to employ a diverse group of arbitrage trading strategies particularly featuring convertible bonds, mergers and utilities. In 2002, Amaranth added energy commodity trading to its slate of strategies with JP Morgan Chase clearing Amaranth’s commodity trades. A multi-strategy fund runs several different strategies in-house that contribute to the total performance of the fund. A single-strategy fund concentrates the whole portfolio on one strategy. Amaranth was long natural gas futures. They enjoyed huge profits from natural gas futures and option trades in 2005 and early 2006. Brian Hunter used borrowed money to double-down on his bets. Buying more futures contracts of this same kind supported their price by increasing demand, which then increased the price gains. It seemed that Brian Hunter was acting on his own entity and that there was little to no communication between the star trader and the management team. Even though the firm emphasized that its fund was multi-strategy, most of the recent losses were driven by adverse natural gas trades. Prior to this debacle, most investors who viewed reports from this firm saw no reason to worry about its performance although some privy to their portfolio positions expressed concern. Amaranth’s misfortunes were solely a result of poor risk management. Also, even though the firm lost over $6 billion in a matter of days, the losses had minimal impact in the industry as a whole. The hearings on natural gas speculation by the permanent subcommittee on investigations of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs clearly demonstrate that the Amaranth debacle could have been easily avoided had ICE like NYMEX had the ability to limit Amaranth positions. In 2006, NYMEX examined Amaranth’s positions and calculated that Amaranth held about 51% of the open interest in the September natural gas futures contract which would expire at the end of the month. NYMEX determined that this was too large and on August 8 NYMEX compliance officials notified Amaranth of their concerns. During a follow up notification on August 9 NYMEX further notified Amaranth that they should not reduce September positions simply by shifting those positions to the October contract. Amaranth complied with NYMEX’s directions and subsequently reduced its September and October positions. However, at the same time Amaranth increased its positions in September and October in ICE contracts and as a results increased their overall positions in natural gas. The events that followed in late August and September led to huge losses with Amaranth losing significant value. The losses were created due to overconfidence, lack of transparency, and lack of risk management. Amaranth enjoyed huge profits and thought prices would just keep rising. There was no communication between Hunter and the management team. Also, investors had no knowledge that the majority of the portfolio was invested in natural gas positions. Leverage played a huge role in the losses. A hedge fund will typically borrow money, with certain funds borrowing sums many times greater than the initial investment. If a hedge fund has borrowed $9 for every $1 received from investors, a loss of only 10% of the value of the investments of the hedge fund will wipe out 100% of the value of the investor's stake in the fund, once the creditors have called in their loans. Risk management at Amaranth failed in August and September of 2006, resulting in the massive loss of over $5 billion in about a week. In the commodities markets only 10 percent was required as collateral for margin calls. Amaranth could also borrow at up to eight times assets to achieve massive amounts of leverage. Amaranth’s systems didn’t appear to measure correctly how much risk it faced and what steps would limit losses effectively. The risk models use historic data but the natural gas markets were more volatile in 2006, which made models useless. Amaranth used spread trades in natural gas futures and options markets to hedge their bets and control risk. Still, these spreads can widen and losses can increase. Going forward, appropriate due diligence should be done by the management team to make sure this does not happen again. Amaranth could have also protected with better downside protection such as put options.

Social Media Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words - 1

Social Media - Essay Example Social media in businessBusiness executives use social media in advertising, networking, and marketing via blogs. Company and products adverts on social sites to target customers who frequently use the social sites. Customers communicate with the company via these social sites in a less formal way. Users can get good business deals and ideas from their friends who are on the social networks as they interact.Many political blogs responding to mainstream news released via radios or TVs are now available in the social media. They are also using the social media to campaign for elections at the grassroots or national level. The uprising and ousting of political leaders in the northern-Africa Islamic countries were made possible by social site.Social media used in educationSocial media subscriptions can provide homework assignments, assigning reading materials thus enhancing e-learning and up-to-date information. Social media has enabled students to carry out projects beyond individual ca pabilities together.Social media in entertainmentiPhones and blackberries equally contain music and games for entertainment. Some social sites such as MySpace are entertainment oriented. TVs are also playing different genres of music for entertainment.Social media for charitable activitiesDonations to the Haiti earthquake via the social media were overwhelming. Social media is also used in delivering source news. Social media has specifically provided news to millions of people.

Family Law Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words - 3

Family Law - Essay Example The treatment mentioned above includes any diagnostic procedures and anaesthetic administration ancillary to the main treatment. As per section 12 of the Act, an infant can also be described as a minor.2 However, this right of consent for children over 16 but below 18 is not absolute. As family law is of discretionary nature , all previously decided cases need not constitute precedents to be binding on judges who are expected to decide by giving weightage to cases independently for the unique factors surrounding them. It does not imply, however, that case law comprises of unconnected decisions since judges functioning with wide discretion develop particular â€Å"patterns, rules of thumb and general principles.† Therefore, there are limits within which judges can firm up their discretion. Thus when there is no guidance from the legislature, courts have assumed to act giving due regard to â€Å"fair outcome and â€Å"best interests of the child.3 Courts also draw guidance fro m the international treaties even though some of them may not have been adopted in domestic law. Thus, the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 (UNRC) which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) also consults for interpretation of article 8 of the ECHR.4 that governs the rights of children. Parekh5 points out that law relating to the child’s consent is not yet clear as far as â€Å"best interests of the child† is concerned. He quotes the authors Kennedy and Grub 6 as having classified the child development into three stages of early childhood, Gillick competent child and the child of 16-18 years of age. Consent by children under 16 years of age is not clear as it is governed by the common law. Consent is valid one only if given by persons having capacity to decide. Hence, during the first stage of development of childhood, parent alone can consent for medical or surgical treatment. In the second stage of Gillick competent child which case will be

Protecting Homeland Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Protecting Homeland Security - Essay Example Following the events of Sept. 11, the U.S. government has had a keen awareness of the risks posed by international terrorist groups, but it is divided over whether the military should be restructured in order to better respond to those threats. One major element of that dilemma has been the funding. With the Pentagon already engaged in expensive, armed conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries invaded by U.S.-led forces as part of the war on terrorism, many wonder whether the U.S. can afford to implement major reforms in its military ranks. Since there is no clear answer to that question, efforts to institute far-reaching structural and policy changes in the U.S. military have divided many within Congress, the Pentagon and the defense industry, which produces the equipment and weapons used by the U.S. military. Supporters of military transformation include Bush, many prominent members of his administration, high-ranking officials in the Pentagon, members of Congress and a number of firms within the defense industry. They collectively argue that, due to the war on terrorism, conditions are right for reforming the military for the 21st century.

Latin history Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Latin history - Essay Example While no underlining meta-narrative or explanation has been presented to account for the state of poverty in these regions, through the juxtaposition and comparison of these perspectives on urban poverty, shanty towns, and social violence, a pragmatic understanding of the issues affecting all societies and cultures is developed, ultimately promoting an empathetic understanding of the state of these marginalized poor. The film Bus 174 opens with an overhead shot of the Rio de Janeiro city landscape while voices from inhabitants leaving on the city streets are heard. The effect is very moving as the viewer begins to comprehend the expansive nature of the city and get a feel for the economic depravity facing many residents. The narrative voices explain how they are forced to beg for food, and attest to the difficulties of seeking shelter. They explicitly state that these issues are primary factors in their growing up enraged at the social order. The film consistently returns to the overhead shots of the city leading the viewer to consider the nature of the city landscape and the on-goings that are central to the film. The film is structured around a hostage situation perpetrated by a man named Sandro. The film reveals that it was the rampant crime in the city that led to Sandro’s mother being murdered when he was 6 years old, and ultimately leading to Sandro becoming a part of a street gang. The viewer becomes introduced to the depravity of Rio de Janeiro street life where large amounts of homeless children fend for their daily existence. In a sense, these inhabitants are presented almost like a scavenger or animal-like race that have been cast off from mainstream society. At one point during the film, a man states that if the police officers were aware that Sandro was a street kid they would have been more aware that he was

Can commercial media be ethical Be sure to draw on each of the module Essay

Can commercial media be ethical Be sure to draw on each of the module topics to in answering the question and use artefacts fro - Essay Example It will also contain ads from various brands that were banned for breaking the ethical barriers. Commercial Media Most of the content of media is staged, where the TV channels show that the Pope is blessing innumerable people, what is important in showing this on air is the millions of people who are viewing this at home not the ones present at the scene where the Pope is offering his blessings. Similarly, the political discussions shown that are witnessed on the TV require approval by the political authorities before these are presented to the viewers. Nevertheless, it can be said that such media programs are few, however, the point persists that such manipulated media is existent. Although, such ‘live Media’ events may be few in number but with the passage of time they are increasing in quantity (Rosengren, 1994). Thus, it can be implied that the human mind is largely conditioned by the media available on the internet, programs on TV, and articles available online and in the magazines. Many individuals believe it to be authentic and let it influence their mind sets. This perspective to look at the authenticity of media makes the consumer gullible to the gimmicks presented in the content of media available on TV, in News Papers, and magazines (Hiebert, 2001; Berman, Abraham, Battino, Shipnuck, & Neus, 2004). Journalism is another way to advertise the product in the market. The image of the advert entirely relies upon the sort of publicity it receives. Usually, this type of advertising is used for the events and media programs; creating a hype for the program in order to increase the TRP’s of the show. Publicity of a product can make and break the image of the product; for whatever the consumer reads and sees on TV thinks it to be authentic to its core. Thus, a bad publicity can ruin the image of the product altogether (Kwanash-Aidoo, 2005; Baerns, 2003; Mickey, 1997). Therefore, it can be analyzed that commercial media has the power to shap e the mind sets of individuals to the extent where they can believe in certain things and abandon beliefs as well. The commercial media have evolved over the last decade. With the emergence of new technology the ideas of communication has been shaped in to varied ways that gauge the attention of the audience and the media providers. This has diverted the attention of the media developers to the newly innovated ways of communication to tools such as the internet and mobile media. Many advertising agencies have invested large sums of money in ambient media. UK industry forecasts that the ambient media are so effective that its growing rapidly, in the near future the cost for ambient media will be in millions of pounds; moreover the literature suggests that the traditional media such as TV, posters, Cinema, and radio is substantially being replaced with the ‘non-traditional out-of-home’ media which is collectively referred to as the ambient media (Hiebert, 2001; Shankar & Horton, 1999). It is essential to high light that due to non-availability of business models in media many of the factors in advertising remain unattended and hap-hazard. For these reasons media tries to publish a story in order to sell well. This lack of media business models only make the media focus upon