A short while back I was hit with this little picture: You may look at the stop-and-frisk trend. But what I found more interesting are the shooting numbers. You don’t often see those numbers. Homicides are well tallied by police departments and the Uniform Crime Reports. Shootings less so. I’ve always used homicides as my standard indicator for crime. Homicides…
A federal judge ruled that some of the ways the NYPD conducts their “Trespass Affidavit Program” are unconstitutional. The NYT reports, “The judge ordered the police ‘to cease performing trespass stops’ outside the private buildings in the program unless officers have reasonable suspicion, a legal standard that requires officers to be acting on more than just a hunch.” So the…
Except this time it was Ray Kelly who was doing the smacking down. He gave it back good to the New York City Council on the subject of stop and frisks and violence among minority youths. From the New York Times: “What I haven’t heard is any solution to the violence problems in these communities — people are upset about…
WNYC reporter Ailsa Chang reports on the curious link between stop and frisks and marijuana arrests in New York City. It’s curious because small-scale possession of marijuana in New York State isn’t a crime (it is a non-arrestable ticketable “violation”). Nor do drugs that are “immediately apparent” based on “plain-feel” during a “Terry Frisk” (for weapons) give police justification to…
As one does, I was just reading the future in my Greek (née Turkish) coffee grounds, and I saw an interesting development. [Cue swamy music] I see that the NYPD is going to start making fewer arrests for possession of marijuana this year starting right about now… I predict that in 2011, misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests in NYC are going…
Here’s the story in the Timesand in the Daily News. The difficulty is that any benefits and harms of aggressive stop and frisks are not only found in aggregate numbers but also in the individual incidents. Some of these stops are good. Some aren’t. So how do we tell the difference? How do we keep the good and get rid…
Heather MacDonald has an op-ed in the New York Times. You know, on police issues we probably agree 75-80% of the time. And yet I’m always left frustrated and strangely disappointed by her writings. She’s too predictable. And her writing lacks depth as she simply sidesteps the main points of the opposition. I generally agreewith her, and yet still find…
Al Baker reports in the Times: Any officer stopping a person in the street must tell the person “the reason, or reasons, why it occurred,” according to a letter from Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly. The policy took effect April 23, according to a departmental order to revise the police patrol guide.…Street stops jumped to 508,540 in 2006, from 97,296…
Officially, the NYPD stopped and frisked 531,000 people last year. That’s a lot. They resulted in 31,665 arrests and 34,081 summonses. Because of the 4th Amendment, you need “probable cause” for a search or arrest. A search happens once you go inside pockets or look for anything accept weapons (drugs do come to mind). Because of a Terry v. Ohio,…