Police Practices and Civil Rights in New York City
Chapter 5
Stop, Question, and Frisk
Each year in New York City, the NYPD stops and frisks thousands of individuals. During each of these stop and frisk encounters, the right of individuals to be free from arbitrary and unwarranted intrusions by government authorities coincides with the duty of those agents to prevent crime and apprehend criminals. Achieving an appropriate balance between the right and the duty presents a challenge for any metropolitan police force.
The current situation presents a formidable dilemma. On the one hand, it is well settled that individuals are entitled to be free from arbitrary police encroachments on their privacy. At the same time, effective law enforcement and maintenance of safe streets require that officers be granted some discretion to stop and question individuals whom they reasonably suspect to be engaging in criminal activity.
In recent years, there has been a growing perception that the NYPD has sacrificed the protection of individuals’ civil liberties in order to achieve quantifiable law enforcement gains.[1] The department’s stop and frisk practices are at the heart of this highly publicized debate.[2]
This chapter of the report begins by discussing the applicable federal and state legal standards governing the NYPD’s stop and frisk policies and practices. Next, there is an assessment of the NYPD’s principal training mechanisms for stop and frisk encounters. This chapter then includes an analysis of the NYPD’s “UF-250” stop and frisk data for the calendar year 1998. Lastly, the chapter concludes with findings and policy recommendations.
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