Is stop and frisk a valid police management tool?

Answer 1

No. In order for an officer to frisk, he must have reasonable articulable suspicion that the person stopped has committed (recent past criminal behavior), is committing (present criminal behavior), or is about to commit (future criminal behavior) a crime. That is known as RAS I. Before and officer can conduct the frisk, RAS I must be satisfied. If RAS I is met, then the officer may conduct a limited seizure of the person (i.e., temporarily detaining the person) in order to determine whether the officer's suspicions are indeed correct. This is also known as a Terry Stop. Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968)

Individuals may have difficulty specifically defining what constitutes reasonable articulable suspicion. As a starting point, it requires more than a "gut feeling" or hunch on the part of the officer. Reasonable articulable suspicion should indicate to the officer a substantial possibility that a crime has occurred, is occurring, or is about to occur. It requires less proof of wrongdoing than required buy the evidence or probable cause standard.

Under the RAS standard, officers are not required to rule out all possibility of innocent behavior before initiating a Terry Stop. The possibility of an innocent explanation for behavior does not deprive the officer of the capacity to entertain a reasonable articulable suspicion of criminal conduct.

Essentially, an officer must do two things in order to meet the reasonable articulable suspicion standard. First, the officer should identify the type of crime he/she suspects is being committed. Second, the officer should be able to specify or articulate what factors leads him/her to believe that the activity is criminal in nature.

The general factors use for determining RAS is based on the totality of circumstances.