Stop and Frisk Hasn't Reduced NYC Shootings

Despite the soaring number of stop and frisk encounters by the New York Police Department, the number of shooting has continued at the same level as before stop and frisk became official NYPD policy.

While the NYPD was stopping and frisking a record 685,724 people last year, 1,821 people were victims of gunfire, according to NYPD and city statistics. That's virtually the same number as in 2002, Bloomberg's first year in office, when 1,892 people were shot, but just 97,296 people were frisked.

The year before, there were 1,845 shootings with a similar number of frisks.

"If you have a flat-line situation with shootings, and the stops are this high, you are throwing everyone up against the wall and you are losing the community, then you have to reassess," a former top NYPD official told "On the Inside."

There's a couple of points to address. If the number of shootings has remained constant during the past decade, but stop and frisk has increased exponentially, something is wrong with that policy since it was intended to get guns off the street. While proponents might argue that the number of shootings might have been even higher had stop and frisk not been in place, the numbers don't exactly bear this out as other reports have indicated that the number of guns recovered during stop and frisks is exceedingly and shockingly low.

Indeed, the number of guns recovered during stop and frisk has gone from 1 in 266 stops to 1 in 3,000. Doing the math, that works out to roughly 228 guns recovered in 2011 as compared to 365 recovered in 2003.

It's also interesting that the number of shootings has remained constant even as the number of murders has remained at or near historic lows. That could be attributed to better life-saving techniques or that there was more random and non-lethal gunfire (firing in the air and random people were struck in a non-fatal manner for instance). This points to the fact that the NYPD has gotten lucky with the low murder rates, considering that the gunfire hasn't decreased.

And that brings me back to stop and frisk. If the policy isn't getting guns off the streets (and a gun-buyback program might accomplish more without totally isolating a community and creating more problems for community policing efforts), then something needs to be done to refocus efforts on those criminal elements bringing the guns into the city. Stop and frisk isn't working and it is taking valuable resources away from other more vital services at a time when the NYPD is being pulled in multiple directions (think continuing counterterrorism work) with an ever more limited budget.

Bloomberg Supports Cuomo's Call To Revise New York Marijuana Possession Laws

Arrests for marijuana possession are among the top crimes caught under the NYPD's Stop and Frisk policy. That policy has been under attack for its disproportionate focus on minorities throughout the city.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has now floated a proposal to reduce the penalty for possession of a joint to a violation, essentially decriminalizing the possession of amounts under 25 grams.

Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration had previously defended low-level marijuana arrests as a way to deter more serious crime, said in a statement that the governor’s proposal “strikes the right balance” in part because it would still allow the police to arrest people who were smoking marijuana in public.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, plans to hold a news conference at the Capitol on Monday to announce his plans to seek the change in state law. Administration officials said the governor would seek to downgrade the possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana in public view from a misdemeanor to a violation, with a maximum fine of $100 for first-time offenders.

Mr. Bloomberg said his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, would attend the governor’s news conference “to show our support for his proposal.”

“We look forward to working with legislative leaders to help pass a bill before the end of session,” the mayor said, referring to this year’s legislative session in Albany, which is scheduled to conclude in three weeks.

In his statement, the mayor noted that last September, Mr. Kelly issued a memorandum to officers clarifying that they were not to arrest people who take small amounts of marijuana out of their pockets after being stopped by the police.

Mr. Bloomberg said that the governor’s proposal was “consistent with the commissioner’s directive.”

Bloomberg's changed stance increases the chances that the proposal may gain traction in the state. Reducing the penalties would also reduce the number of people who would be brought into the criminal justice system and reduce costs over the long haul - though that has the potential to be offset by an increase in crime. Expect Republicans to focus on the potential for higher crime, though they may also see the reduced costs for incarceration and processing of low-level drug crimes. Even Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey has called for revision of drug crime penalties to reflect the fact that the state can't afford to incarcerate low-level drug offenders.

Despite Bloomberg Saying Nothing Wrong With Stop and Frisk; NYPD Commissioner Kelly Institutes Reforms

It's curious how Mayor Mike Bloomberg can defend stop and frisk as a policy that works on the same day that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly announces reforms of the program to address community concerns.

In a letter sent earlier today to Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Kelly said top-ranking officials in each police precinct will now be required to audit reports of street stops by officers. This is in addition to a review undertaken at weekly Compstat meetings by the chief of the department, he wrote.

“I believe these measures will help us more closely monitor the daily street encounter activity of precinct personnel,” he wrote.

He also said that the department has republished an order prohibiting racial profiling and has created a new training course that “provides personnel with an additional level of clarity in determining when and how to conduct a lawful stop.”

Quinn, who released Kelly’s letter, said in a statement that the changes announced were “an important step forward” but said more needs to be done to reduce the number of stops and “bridge the divide between the NYPD and the communities they serve.”

A federal judge yesterday granted class-action status to a lawsuit against the city’s stop-and-frisk practices. The lawsuit alleges that the NYPD has systematically targeted blacks and Latinos and trampled on Constitutional protections against unreasonable searches.

Particularly of interest is the fact that Kelly had to reiterate the prohibition of racial profiling and additional training on how to conduct lawful stops. It would seem to be a nod to the fact that the policies that were previously put in place were insufficient or that the cops carrying out the stop and frisk activities need additional training.

Part of the problem with the program as a whole may be diminishing returns on a program that started out with the best of intentions and did take criminals and their weapons off the streets, but which has become a slave to its own statistics as a metric of how much activity beat cops are doing on a regular basis.

Despite Higher Stop and Frisk Figures, NYPD Ticket Writing Way Down

New York City is busy dealing with the stop and frisk controversy and suits filed against the policy, but a curious statistic was released on another aspect of policing in New York City.

The NYPD is on pace to write more than a quarter million fewer tickets than it did last year, likely as a result of a ticket-fixing scandal last year that led to beat cops not issuing as many tickets as they had been. That has budget ramifications as the tickets translate into revenues.

The city’s revenues from traffic and parking violations could come in under last year’s eight-year low because cops are on track to write nearly 270,000 fewer moving violations, The Post has learned.

Reports from Mayor Bloomberg’s budget office show that 1,262,585 of those violations were recorded in the last fiscal year, while only 744,741 were logged through the first nine months of fiscal 2012.

If that trend continues through June 30, when the fiscal year ends, the final tally will be 992,988 — a stunning reduction of 269,597 summonses.

The Post reported last August that cops upset at new regulations imposed after the Bronx ticket-fixing scandal were engaging in a widespread slowdown.

That includes both parking violations and moving violations, which combined can generate around $500 million annually.

Should the trend continue, expect to watch the City Council increase the fines associated with the various violations even higher than they are already so as to generate the revenues necessary to fund operations.

Even NYPD Professionals Are Questioning The Scope of Stop and Frisk

The release of data showing just how frequently the NYPD is using Stop and Frisk as a police tactic to reduce crime is staggering with its implications and whether the program is no longer achieving its objectives. It's got top level police officials questioning whether the program has gone off the rails - for performance objectives sake - and ignoring the implications for civil rights and actual crime fighting.

Last Friday, the NYPD revealed they conducted 204,000 "Stop-and-Frisks" in just the first three months of the year, pushing the boundary even further.

How has a police department that was conducting 500,000 stop and frisks a year — or 1,400-a-day — compelled the same number of troops to conduct 200,000 more — or 500 additional stops every day?

And why?

Is it all about fighting crime? Is it about Kelly and Bloomberg’s legacy?
One official offered insight.

He said the department a year or so ago quietly issued "performance standards" that only "put more pressure downward on cops, asking them, 'What did you do this week?'

"And the feeling was, ‘If they were going to break my balls, then I will just do what I know they want and end my problem. Period.'"

This well intentioned program started off well - and it was getting criminals off the street when it was focused on high crime areas, but as the program expanded, it started having unintended consequences. Instead of putting the community and police on the same page as far as fighting criminal elements in the communities, it creates distrust and apprehension.

If police commanders in precincts are encouraged to show results - one way they can do so is by putting more of their beat cops on stop and frisk details, and they can show that they're in the field by reporting on the number of stop and frisks on a daily basis. It's a numbers driven policy that doesn't actually reduce crime and may be taking resources away from those tactics that have been shown to work best.

It's time to put stop and frisk back into its context - to use it in high crime areas. This is one time where the statistics do not back up stop and frisk.