Stop The Robberies, Enjoy Safe Streets (STRESS) was a Detroit Police Department unit that operated from 1971 until 1974.[1]
STRESS was created to reduce crime in Detroit by surveilling and catching criminals in the act[2]. It used decoy units, targeting African-American men.[3] It led to the deaths of twenty-four men, twenty-two of them African-American, over the course of three and a half years.[3]
A 1973 poll found that 65 percent of black Detroiters disapproved and 78 percent of white Detroiters approved of STRESS.[4]
Notes
- Deadlinedetroit (retrieved 30 November 2018)
- "2. The Creation of STRESS · Detroit Under Fire: Police Violence, Crime Politics, and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Civil Rights Era · HistoryLabs Omeka S". policing.umhistorylabs.lsa.umich.edu. Retrieved 2026-01-21.
- Merriman, Doug (November 17, 2015). "A History of Violence: The Detroit Police Department, The African American Community and S.T.R.E.S.S. An Army of Occupation or An Army Under Siege". Doug Merriman. Retrieved 16 August 2018.
- Jay, Mark; Conklin, Philip (2020-04-17). A People's History of Detroit. Duke University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv1131811. ISBN 978-1-4780-0935-1.