Talk:Frisking

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I'm not just going ahead and merging the articles is because there's no global perspective in either of them. There is also already an article on the underlying US Supreme Court decsion Terry v. Ohio and merging Terry stop to there might be the better choice. Otto4711 05:35, 7 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Can you expand this to cover the scope of Terry? There seems to be a big body of case law regarding the officer's right to stop a suspected criminal (e.g., if the criminal is traveling in a vehicle) without probable cause to seek a "consent" search. (see Alabama v. White; SCOTUS). Also, the SCT has held that you can Terry "frisk" an automobile (Michigan v. Long). It would be great to see a little about these topics included in this article! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.57.74.52 (talk) 13:29, 11 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

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The Terry opinion says "armed and dangerous"; the authority to search the area within a suspect's immediate control was covered in Chimel v. California, 395 U.S. 752 (1969), not Terry; suspicion of a crime authorizes a stop but does not per se authorize a frisk. JeffConrad (talk) 02:14, 21 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article by Jeff Bray in Police Chief magazine is an interesting read, but I don't think it's appropriate here, for at least two reasons:

1. Aside from a brief mention of when a frisk may be authorized, it has almost nothing to do with the sentence it supposedly supports—it's about obligations for detainees to identify themselves, and would be more appropriate for Stop and Identify statutes.
2. The article is POV and in places quite speculative. This is hardly unusual for a prosecutor or counsel for a law enforcement agency, but I don't think it belongs in Wikipedia without a clear indication that it's one person's opinion, and perhaps another citation stating a different POV to maintain overall neutrality.

For now, I've moved the article to Stop and Identify statutes under External links.

That's a pretty technical revert. The problem is that this article is entirely uncited - and therefore the reader has no reliable sources to back up its assertions, and it is unhelpful for people looking for something which looks reliable (as Bray's article does) to cite other than Wikipedia. Specifically, the article was cited to support the assertion in the article:

The authority to briefly detain a person upon reasonable suspicion less than probable cause has become known as a Terry stop;

Bray's article says, among other things:

According to the U.S. Supreme Court, a police officer may initiate a temporary stop, a level of intrusion short of an arrest, if the officer can articulate a reasonable suspicion that the suspect has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime.1 This is commonly known as a Terry stop.

So it directly supports the assertion and provides further reading. I'm not sure what you're referring to when you say it is speculative, but almost all articles are speculative in part; if I was citing an opinion from there, then noting that the opinion might make sense, but I don't see that here. So I think it needs to be restored and I would appreciate it if you did it. There are relatively few freely-available sources which are at the level of this article as far as reliability, and the single external link is dead.

One of the issues here is that Terry stop redirects here, and I used it find this article. However, Terry stops do not necessarily involve frisking at all, as the Police Chief article notes. It seems somewhat more reasonable to me to consolidate the stop and identify statutes article with frisking, as this is simply an additional step in the process of a Terry stop. Regardless of what happens, these articles are very closely related and it seems clear that directing Terry stop here is not quite correct. II | (t - c) 06:37, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Police Chief magazine is certainly authoritative in stating the perspective of law enforcement, but accordingly, it's definitely POV, much as would be an article by the ACLU or the National Lawyers Guild, so it's hardly the best choice to support a factual statement. I have no disagreement with the passage that you cited (which I doubt has been in dispute since Terry was decided) or with several others in Bray's article that are essentially factual. But what you cited is only a small part of the article, which is primarily about a topic on which there is considerable disagreement, and which is largely unrelated to this article.

It's very similar to Point of View published by the Alameda County District Attorney's Office cited in Stop and Identify statutes; it's a very useful and authoritative publication, but it is definitely written as much from the standpoint of advocacy as from impartial presentation of the facts. And it's identified as such in that article, just as are citations of ACLU material.

Several of Bray's inferences go far beyond what the cases cited actually support, and that's was the basis for my saying that the article is POV and speculative. In particular, he tends to cite the very conservative Tenth Circuit, which has some ideas that are very different from other circuits such as the Ninth. As I mentioned, this is nothing unusual for a law enforcement agency (or for the ACLU, for that matter). But it's inappropriate to inject into a largely unrelated article such as this one.

I agree that a Terry stop and a frisk are very closely related, and that the redirect from the former to this article is misguided. The frisk is a subset of the broader issue, so if anything, this article should redirect to Terry stop. Accordingly, I think we should propose such a page move. It's even questionable whether this article should exist; much of it is repetitive, and there's little aside from the discovery of contraband that isn't covered much better in Terry v. Ohio. A justification for having a short Terry stop article might be that it would save the reader from having to wade through the historical and procedural information in the article about the case.

I don't agree on consolidating Frisking and Stop and Identify statutes. Though both frisking and requesting identification are arguably elements of a Terry stop, the former is well established, but aside from the fairly narrow circumstances of Hiibel, the requirement to identify oneself is largely unsettled.

If we need sources, we can easily support the authority to detain and search for weapons by directly citing Terry, though some more recent cases (e.g., Hiibel) would probably support a more succinct citation. Some of the other issues (e.g., contraband discovered in the course of a search for weapons) would need to look elsewhere.

The external link in this article seems to work fine for me, and it's considerably less speculative than Bray's article. Unfortunately, it cites extensively from Connecticut jurisprudence, which is largely inapplicable elsewhere.

In summary, I think Police Chief is too POV to use as a source here, though I think it's fine as an external link in an article to which it better relates. I agree that the current redirect to this article is wrong, and if we keep this article, we should change the title and have Frisking redirect to it.

I don't think we should consider merging this article with Stop and Identify statutes, at least at this time. That article is a separate topic, in addition to being much longer (and much better sourced). The case can be made that Stop and Identify statutes conflates police–citizen encounters and identification requirements, so perhaps there could be an article just on police–citizen encounters, with individual articles on subtopics such as this one. But I think that's a fairly significant undertaking at this point, and well might meet with considerable objection.

I agree that it's reasonable to have some sources for this article, but they should be reasonably neutral. I'll see if I can find something sufficiently succinct in Terry or some of its progeny. It can be argued, of course, that anyone can cite stale precedent; however, the basics of Terry have been cited essentially without change in countless cases up to the present. And a secondary source could be equally stale, in addition to potential problems with NPOV. JeffConrad (talk) 08:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I noticed your edits (mentioned in below section). While these are somewhat OK, it is technically not right to use primary sources like this. WP:PSTS encourages people to use secondary sources, and there is a very relevant reason to use them in this case: you and I (Wikipedia editors) are not reliable sources to say that these court cases remain relevant. You might work directly in this area (I do not) and therefore have some expertise, but Terry could technically be superseded by various things, and readers are therefore left with no good source telling them that Terry remains valid. With the Bray article, we have an attorney for a police department affirming that, as of the date the article was written, Terry still held true. That clarifies things immensely, and in my opinion without a secondary source confirming the relevance of these articles as of a particular date they are not really OK. II | (t - c) 01:29, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Legal matters are somewhat of an exception (see Secondary source#Law); primary sources are often preferred because they're authoritative and because they aren't subject to spin by an advocate of a particular POV. And in an adversarial system of law, almost any attorney is an advocate; Jeff Bray is no exception. I'm sure he's a capable attorney, and much of what he says is essentially undisputed, but as I mentioned, some of it is speculative, slanted towards a law-enforcement POV. You'd have the same issues issues with an ACLU attorney, though with a decidedly different slant. When anyone cites a case as supporting a position, it is imperative to review the cited case, preferably in its entirety, and sometimes cases the cited cases cite, to see if the court opinions actually support the argument. In many cases, the support is far more tepid than the advocate's statement implies, and sometimes the inference drawn from a cited case is off the wall. Consider the number of 5–4 decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court—if the supposed top jurists in the U.S. cannot agree on a particular area of the law, there's obviously a subjective element. But it is the law of the land in the U.S.; as Clarence Thomas noted, they may not be infallible, but they are final.

In any event, an attorney for a law-enforcement agency is at best marginal for WP:NPOV. In theory, a law professor might be a better choice, but even there, one can find support for almost any position by choosing the right professor—Arizona SB 1070 is a good example. I could just as reasonably insist that we cite someone like John Burris, who would assuredly have a very different take on what's allowable and what's actually done in the course of an investigative detention.

When citing jurisprudence, there's always a chance that it has been overruled by subsequent jurisprudence, but there's no assurance that a secondary source that's more than a few days old is current, either—Bray's article was written in 2007, so it's arguably not current, either. In the case of this article, I just don't see the problem—we mention Terry and cite Terry in support of what we say; I cannot imagine anything more authoritative. If Terry were not current, we could not reasonably mention Terry without also indicating that it had been overruled.

Again, the one great advantage of citing an opinion is that it's what the court actually said rather than what some partisan alleges that the court said. As we both agree, there's always a chance that a later case may overrule, but the only way to manage this (with either primary or secondary sources) is for editors familiar with the relevant area of law to keep the article up to date. JeffConrad (talk) 03:08, 2 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I've added citations to support the two main premises of this article; more can be added if felt necessary. I cited Hiibel in the first case because I couldn't find anything sufficiently succinct in Terry. The article still needs a lot of work, especially in eliminating some obviously redundant statements. And there is the greater issue of the questionable redirect from the main topic to a subtopic. JeffConrad (talk) 09:25, 31 August 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The discussion has run its seven-day course, and there seems to be universal consensus for splitting Terry stop into a separate article, so I've gone ahead and made that change. That article was merged with Frisking in November 2006, but as it is now written, I see no reasonable way that the two can be merged again.

As I had mentioned, I think this article should be moved to Frisk to comply with WP:NOUN (and the first sentence would make more sense as well), but something would need to be done to avoid disambiguation. Accordingly, I've not made the change. JeffConrad (talk) 04:13, 10 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Terry stop once again redirects to this article, with the entire new article gone with no trace in the history. What gives? JeffConrad (talk) 04:28, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It now works fine—must have been a database glitch. JeffConrad (talk) 04:30, 29 September 2010 (UTC)[reply]

With the separation of this article from Terry stop, frisking is not necessarily restricted to peace officers and objects sought to be discovered are not necessarily limited to weapons. Objects sought aren't necessarily limited to weapons and drugs, either. I've made simple changes to the lead section to reflect this.

I think the material relating to a Terry stop should be thinned, because it's only one element of what's properly covered here, and because it's adequately covered in Terry stop.

I don't anticipate being a major contributor to this, but offer a few thoughts on searches the article might be expanded to cover:

1. By a peace officer, incident to a Terry stop.
2. By a peace officer, incident to arrest. Here the search is not limited to weapons. And it's not necessarily limited to frisk.
3. By private security as a condition of entrance to a venue. In the last several years, suits have been filed against NFL teams who require ticket holders to submit to such a search prior to entering stadiums.
4. By private security, for whatever reason, legally authorized or otherwise. Any evidence so discovered is not subject to the exclusionary rule.
5. By others, probably including drug dealers, prostitutes' escorts, and assorted thugs, any of whom might be looking for a wire as much as for weapons.

JeffConrad (talk) 09:49, 9 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The article is far too American. Frisking exists elsewhere, you know? However it is an interesting article and it's amazing how lacking America's human rights are when compared to other parts of the world. There's no way such methods would be standard in the EU. I've heard that cavity searches are allowed in the USA - it's even mandatory for prisoners when they first arrive in an institution. What a seriously messed up country!--78.155.49.242 (talk) 20:55, 22 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

It should be pretty clear from WP:RS that a personal blog, especially when the author is anonymous, is generally not acceptable:

“Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason self-published media—whether books, newsletters, personal websites, open wikis, blogs, personal pages on social networking sites, Internet forum postings, or tweets—are largely not acceptable. . . . Self-published material may be acceptable when produced by an established expert on the topic of the article whose work in the relevant field has previously been published by reliable third-party publications.”

What has established SnallaBolaget as such an expert? The obfuscatory domain registration would seem intended to preclude verification of SnallaBolaget's credentials. The comparison with Bruce Schneier, who isn't anonymous and has numerous publications by reliable third-party publishers, is simply not on. I make no direct comment on SnallaBolaget's qualifications or the quality of the cited article, but simply note that the blog does not meet WP:RS. The site has a bit of a self-promotional tone, but that's really a minor issue compared with the failure to meet WP:RS.

Either SnallaBolaget's identity and credentials should be established, or it should be removed as a reference. JeffConrad (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

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You may be right, JeffConrad, and while I think many would agree on the fact that using such sites as main sources might possibly be against WP guidelines, I don't think using such simple listings as this, a short description of something that is commonly known, is against such.

I used schneier.com as an example since it's clear that it's a personal blog, and even though Schneier has had his writings published by so-called reliable third-party publications, the man himself does not have qualifications in the security field outside IT security and cryptography. Listing his blog as a reference then for such articles as airport security would mean that in that instance, the third party publication should be used directly, instead of his personal blog. Just to clarify; when I say that Schneier is not qualified outside cryptography, I mean that he does not have any certifications pertaining to physical security or investigation (such as CPP, PSP or PCI), and he's not even a member of ASIS. Murdockh (talk) 21:31, 28 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I think common sense, even more than WP policy, suggests that an anonymous personal blog is not a reliable source. And I'm not sure it makes sense to distinguish between a “main source” and other sources. If something is commonly known, no source is usually needed, but it nonetheless should be simple enough to find a reliable source that supports it. But using an anonymous blog as a source does little more than establish that a WP source is meaningless.

I'm not convinced that certificates of any nature make for a reliable source, but they certainly are one element to be considered. Repeated publication by well-respected professional publishers is probably a better indicator. So while I can't say whether Schneier would qualify as a reliable source on airport security, he certainly would be, a priori, a much better bet than an anonymous blogger, whom I don't even think is suitable as an external link. So unless a much better case can be made for SnallaBolaget, I'm going to remove the reference. Again, if it's important that we have this information (and it may well be), it should be easy enough to find a reliable source. JeffConrad (talk) 02:34, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to argue for arguing's sake, but I do think you're being inconsistent. If no source or reference is needed for things that are commonly known, then you should definitely review just about all articles on WP and remove a few million of them. Either you want references (and WP does, in fact, want those) or you don't.

As for the information in the reference, I do believe it is important that we have it, and I also hereby invite you to dig up another source with the same info - a "reliable" source, that is - since that is so easy (it's not, I dare say). I will expect to see it listed, and I will of course leave the current reference up for you to remove if you so wish. I will of course also (with thought to this discussion) remove any personal blog links that I find as references, and expect a (and here comes the oxymoron of the day) first-hand third-party source instead. Sound good? Murdockh (talk) 12:04, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No disagreement that WP policy for sources is routinely violated when it comes to personal blogs and web sites, for references and especially in external links. Though I consider the requirements for the latter to be much less rigorous, there still are many that add nothing to the articles in which they appear, and some are just plain wrong. Inclusion of such links reflects badly not only on WP but on the editors who add them. I routinely remove such links from articles with which I've been involved for other reasons, but I have neither the time nor the interest to go looking for links to delete. I am by no means a rules fanatic, but when the rules simply follow common sense I see no reason to ignore them.

As we've previously discussed, some personal blogs are acceptable, though they should be chosen with care. For example, a blog by a law professor might be fine for giving an interpretation of law in the area of the professor's expertise, though it often should referenced as “According to Joe Jones, law professor at . . .”

I don't disagree that the information may be useful, but unless it comes from a verifiable, reliable source it's little more than “I found it somewhere on the Internet”; from WP:V: “The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is true.” Should I find a reliable source, I'll gladly add it, but I remind of WP:BURDEN, which again seems to follow simple common sense.

This isn't an argument for argument's sake; rather, a source that isn't verifiable and reliable is worth no more than an editor's opinion. If material essentially the same as SnallaBolaget's blog entry were incorporated in an article without support, it almost certainly be flagged as needing a reference. Inclusion of this blog as a reference is in a sense disingenuous because, at least at first glance, it implies a source when there actually is none. JeffConrad (talk) 22:09, 29 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the following material from Terry v. Ohio because it has nothing to do with that case or subsequent jurisprudence:

For instance New York City has come under scrutiny for their use of the Terry Stop. Supporters say that it reduces crime, but civil rights advocates say it is racial profiling. John A. Eterno, a former city police captain describes: “My take is that this has become more like a ‘throw a wide net and see what you can find’ kind of thing. I don’t see it as targeted enforcement, especially when you see numbers that we are talking about.^[1]”

The cited article raises a similar issue to that in the second paragraph under Stop and frisk here: that some “Terry stops” may not be supported by articulable reasonable suspicion, and in some cases may represent racial profiling. Perhaps the material could be added to this article (a new heading for this and the current second paragraph would seem indicated). But I wonder if this isn’t getting away from the topic of this article; perhaps this material and the current second paragraph under Stop and frisk would be more appropriate in Terry stop, perhaps under a section to the effect of Questionable Terry stops. JeffConrad (talk) 08:41, 27 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve merged this material into the article; change the new subsection title if it’s too POV. As before, I think this material may be better placed in Terry stop, but at least it’s all in one place for now.

If the entire presentation seems too POV, perhaps we should balance it with a differing viewpoint, or condense what’s currently presented, keeping what’s thought to be most important. JeffConrad (talk) 04:06, 28 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: here. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.) For legal reasons, we cannot accept copyrighted text or images borrowed from other web sites or published material; such additions will be deleted. Contributors may use copyrighted publications as a source of information, but not as a source of sentences or phrases. Accordingly, the material may be rewritten, but only if it does not infringe on the copyright of the original or plagiarize from that source. Please see our guideline on non-free text for how to properly implement limited quotations of copyrighted text. Wikipedia takes copyright violations very seriously, and persistent violators will be blocked from editing. While we appreciate contributions, we must require all contributors to understand and comply with these policies. Thank you. Diannaa (talk) 01:20, 12 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Why no mention of the recent policy, of stop-and-frisk-zones, in Denmark? 155.4.221.27 (talk) 07:05, 11 May 2023 (UTC)[reply]