NYPD: Stop, Question And Frisk Policy

NYPD: Stop, Question & Frisk Policy
A New Style of Policing or a Crime Fighting Tool?

Racial Profiling in the Criminal Justice system. Racial Profiling has been argued to be a very ineffective style of community policing in the criminal justice system. Using the New York City Police Department, “Stop, Question & Frisk” Policy as a model, I will show that profiling has led to lower crime rates which is shown from a current and historical point of view. Using history as a tool, in time periods where New York City seen the highest peaks of crime, through interviews and official documents, I will show data on different races being profiled for crimes in different communities. Some would argue that
this is an injustice where law enforcement agencies have created policies targeting the communities of color or different ethnicities. As stated by an NYPD spokesman in 2011, “Blacks made up 53 percent of the stop subjects and were 66 percent of the violent crime suspects in 2011... For Hispanics, 34 percent were stop subjects and 26 percent were violent crime suspects.” ("Stop And Frisk Facts | New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) - American Civil Liberties Union of New York State") The question can be raised is profiling a tool or an injustice? Does it hinder police and community relationships? & does it help lower crime?

The New York City Police Department was established in 1845 and is the largest Municipal law enforcement agency in the United States. The department has over thirty six thousand police officers in which patrol New York City streets and serve in other specialized duties domestically and internationally. The NYPD has made great strides to be the department of policy creation and also the creator of their crime fighting statistic tool known as Compstat. Compstat was developed in 1993 and reports crimes within the city based on the FBI Uniform Crime Report classifications and have been duplicated in other agencies throughout the country. ("NYPD Official New York City Police Department Web Site")

The NYPD Stop, Question and Frisk Policy (also known as “250’s”/ UF-250 referring to the form Officers must fill out in regards to stopping, questioning and frisking a citizen) is a policy created under the Bloomberg administration with Raymond W.
Kelly as the commissioner of the department for the last ten years. “Stop & Frisk is the practice by which NYPD officers initiates a stop of an individual on the street, based on so-called reasonable suspicion of criminal activity”. ("NYPD 's Stop and Frisk Practice: Unfair and Unjust | Center for Constitutional Rights") This policy came about in 2002, when Mayor Bloomberg along with the Commissioner Kelly created “Operation Impact”. The operation placed new recruit officers directly from the academy to patrol a foot post in a high crime area. With the success of the program within the first year, the program was expanded to include more officers and new strategies to lower crime. Stop, Question and Frisk is a conversation on the roll call of every precinct within the city in which I have witnessed
firsthand.

Before the era of Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD adopted a style of Policing which was known as Community Policing or as it was referred to as “C POP”. According to the United States Department of Justice Community Policing is defined as: a philosophy that promotes organizational strategies, which support systematic use of partnerships and problem solving techniques, to proactively address the immediate conditions that arise to public safety issues such as crime, social disorder and fear of crime. ("COPS Office: What is Community Policing?") From the late 1960’s to early 2002 the NYPD adopted this form of policing and put it into practice within their department. The police department expanded its Community Affairs Division (which was created in 1967), which foster positive police and community relations. ("NYPD Official New York City Police Department Web Site") The department also created a unit in each command known as C POP unit. In an interview with an officer who was a member of this unit for five years, he stated that the unit was a group of minority officers in which the community would get to know. The goals of the unit were to patrol a defined area within the command and have interactions with youth, business owners, and the elderly. He stated that the goal was to have an officer that the community knew and also to have an officer that knows the people that reside within the community.

The department also placed more Community Affairs officers, who wore a distinctive uniform who was better known as the proactive officers. These officers would meet with the community to address concerns, give presentations on gang violence and safety. This officer said with a new police commissioner and mayor in 2002, the goals of the department shifted. A very evident shift from this style of policing can be seen in a 2010 Fourth of July incident. Where four police officers in the Bronx was tossing a football around with a little boy in the park. The officers were “verbally berated and penalized for their actions. The officers were formally disciplined and received a loss of five vacation days for their actions. One officer, Mariana Diaz stated “There’s a lot of negativity toward police…I want kids in the community to look at us in a positive way.” ("Moving Forward in the NYPD: Community Policing is the Response to Community Outrage - Security Center")

In 2002 Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg created an NYPD Operation known as Operation Impact. This was a testing tool to determine if placing new recruit officers directly from the academy to pre-determined impact zones to help lower crime. Predetermined impact zones where areas within the city that has a high crime rate. These neighborhoods included Brownsville, Red Hook, and Carroll Garden all in Brooklyn. The Upper East Side, Harlem all located in Manhattan, the South Bronx and south Jamaica, Queens. With the deployment of over 1,000 officers into this newly formed Operation Impact, in 2003 the first measured year, the city seen a 33% drop in crime in the Impact Zone citywide. This resulted to 3,612 fewer crime victims. This dramatic drop in crime has not been seen in New York City since the 1960’s. In that one year of review this operation resulted in over 32,000 arrests and almost 376,000 summons. ("Impact Zones Expanded After Successful First Year", 2004)

Thus the success of Operation Impact from 2002 to 2003, Operation Impact was expanded to now cover 52 Impact zones. Of these fifty two zones, twenty five are within twenty two precincts, in twenty six subway stations and two zones in nine housing developments. This expansion created the policy known as Stop, Question and Frisk. ("Impact Zones Expanded After Successful First Year", 2004) This policy help incorporate an existing NYPD operation known as “Operation Clean Halls”. Operation Clean halls has been in effect since 1991 and has allowed police office to execute vertical patrols, by going up into private and also city owned housing developments and conducting stop and frisk searches in hallways, with the landlords permission. In the same year that Operation Impact was reviewed for it success, Operation Clean halls in 2002-2003 alone police officers conducted 240,000 “vertical patrols” or stop and frisk searches. ("Mike Bloomberg 's New York: Cops in Your Hallways | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone") I incorporate these two operations together because with the expansion of Operation Impact two zones now cover nine high crime housing developments in New York City. This old operation gave officers the power to stop and frisk anyone in the housing developments while conducting “vertical patrols”.

An example of the effect that Operation Clean Halls has on Stop, Question and Frisk Policy is on June 15, 2011, three African American males, where leaving a friend house whose lives in a Bronx housing development. The friends were stopped in the stairwell by two police officers. The mother of the friend who they were visiting saw them being stopped in the stairwell and informed her son that they were being questioned by the Police. As her son went down stairs, he seen his friends leaned against the wall, handcuffed and being searched. He told the officers that his friends were there to visit him and they were just leaving. The three males were taken to the 44th precinct, kept in holding cells for three hours and issues summons for trespassing which was later dismissed. Under this Operation Clean Halls, the police can stop, question and frisk any citizen that they believe to be trespassing and issue summons for trespassing or failing to produce government identification. ("Mike Bloomberg 's New York: Cops in Your Hallways | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone")

Data released by the NYPD on the Stop Question and frisk policy has resulted in astounding numbers of protesting stop and frisk, in which has seen much community out cry for reform of the police department or independent oversight. According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, in 2011 a highest record since 2003, 685,724 people were stopped by the NYPD. 84% of that figure was African American & Latino residents. In retrospective these two races on comprise to about twenty three and twenty nine percent of New York City population. Since 2002 NYPD stop and frisk has increased by over 600%. Where in 2002 the total stops were 97,837 as compared to 2011 the total stops where 685,724. In 2002 the total number of Frisk was only 52,803 as compared to 2011 totals of 381, 704. ("NYPD 's Stop and Frisk Practice: Unfair and Unjust | Center for Constitutional Rights")

Of the total number of stop and frisk there was in 2011, only six percent resulted in arrest. Only six percent resulted in summons given and only two percent resulted in contraband found. The data shows that 51% are blacks, 33% Latino and 9% white that are being stopped and frisked by this department. ("NYPD 's Stop and Frisk Practice: Unfair and Unjust | Center for Constitutional Rights",) This data shows there is a large racial disparity when it comes to what race is more likely to be stopped by the NYPD. In a New York Times article released in 2010 the reasons that officers listed on their UF-250’s for stopping a person were, furtive movement, appears to be “casing”, appears to be lookout, fits description, apparent drug deal, “Bulge”, violent crime indication, clothing and a suspicious object. ("Map of New York City Police Stops - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com",)

In a video released by the Vital Fund Project, undisclosed officer secretly taped an annual performance evaluation with their supervisor. In this recording the supervisor states to the officer “You need to get more 250’s, I would hate to see you get disciplined for this, but the department wants more 250’s. I was a beat officer two, I understand but work the streets, get more 250’s and I ensure you your evaluation would look better.” ("The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD 's Stop-and-Frisk Policy",) In the same video officers would account for times that other officers have not meet their “performance object/measure”, also known as a quota they would be transferred to undesirable commands and units, given tours that many officers would not like, such as the midnights. ("The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD 's Stop-and-Frisk Policy",)

The community has banded together to call for action against the Stop, Question and Frisk Policy.
The Center for Constitutional Rights they have filed a federal class action lawsuit (Floyd, et al. v. City of New York, et al.) against the NYPD and the City of New York. The lawsuit challenges the NYPD’s practice of racial profiling and unconstitutional stops and frisks. Another organization known as the New York Civil Liberties Union, has created and proposed the Community Safety Act to the New York City Council. This act is said to be the first step toward ending discriminatory practices like stop and frisk. “The act is a series of civil rights bulls that if pass this legislation will create a real ban on racial profiling; protect New Yorkers from unlawful searches; and require that police officers identify themselves and explain their actions when they stop people. ("NYPD 's Stop and Frisk Practice: Unfair and Unjust | Center for Constitutional
Rights",)

I myself have participated in town hall meeting conducted by city council members to hear the community call to end this practice that the NYPD has taken on, increasingly over the last decade. I first asked was the NYPD: Stop, Question & Frisk Policy a new style of policing or a crime fighting tool. According to Mayor Bloomberg & Commissioner Kelly, this policy has helped lowered crime and taken guns off the street. I answer that question by saying what does the data show? The data does show an increase of stop and frisk of 600% since Mayor Bloomberg has taken office in 2002. It shows a large racial disparity between the numbers of minorities that are stop and frisk compared to white citizens. The data shows that crime has been on the decline, but is this direct effect of this policing tactic or is there other contributing factors?

Abandoning the style of community policing has demonstrated the very negative relationship the community has with the New York City Police Department. I stated that New York City Police Department is the largest law enforcement agency in the United States. As compared to other major cities and large police departments they have demonstrated and data proves fact that they have lowered crime at a higher rate than New York City has, without using stop, question and frisk as a policy. One prime example is the Los Angeles Police department has seen a 52% decrease in crime in the last decade. This city is almost the same size of New York City and this department has adopted NYPD original policies of community policing and Compstat. This adaptation of NYPD culture was taken from an NYPD former chief who created Compstat and would later become the police commissioner for LAPD.

There is a lot that must be done to stop the NYPD and the use of Stop, Question and frisk. The figures show the large racial disparity in the stops and frisk which has a strong question on whether the stops are motivated by racial profiling. It takes the will power of a community to seek a change and ask for stronger and direct oversight of the police department. I strongly believe that stop and frisk is not a crime fighting tool but a tactical policing strategy used to lower crime figures within the City. The NYPD has a Community Affairs Bureau who has officers dedicated to fostering positive police and community relations. Over the past several years, I have worked within an NYPD Law Enforcement Explorers program, interacting with officers and community members in many different capacities. It is not enough to have a bureau doing community outreach. It must take the entire department to foster a culture of positive community relations. We need to reverse the direction of policing and return to the stronger community outreach policing model that has worked in the past. If other departments across this country can do it, why can’t the department who has been the leader in policy creation do the same? Stop, Question and Frisk Policy of the NYPD is an injustice to the rights of all and should be stopped.

References
COPS Office: What is Community Policing? (n.d.). COPS Office: Grants and Resources for Community Policing. Retrieved from http://www.cops.usdoj.gov/default.asp?item=36
Impact Zones Expanded After Successful First Year. (2004, January 12). www.nyc.gov. Retrieved from http:// www.nyc.gov/portal/site/nycgov/menuitem.c0935b9a57bb4ef3daf2f1c701c789a0/index.jsp?pageID=mayor_press_release&catID=1194&doc_name=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nyc.gov%2Fhtml%2Fom%2Fhtml%2F2004a%2Fpr007-04.html&cc=unused1978&rc=1194&ndi=1
Map of New York City Police Stops - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com. (n.d.). The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/07/11/nyregion/20100711-stop-and-frisk.html?ref=nyregion
Mike Bloomberg 's New York: Cops in Your Hallways | Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone. (n.d.). Rolling Stone | Music News, Politics, Reviews, Photos, Videos, Interviews and More. Retrieved from http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/mike-bloombergs-new-york-cops-in-your-hallways-20120403?print=true
Moving Forward in the NYPD: Community Policing is the Response to Community Outrage - Security Center. (n.d.). Center for National Policy. Retrieved from http://cnponline.org/ht/d/ViewBloggerThread/i/40828/pid/35636
NYPD Official New York City Police Department Web Site. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.nyc.gov/nypd

NYPD pulling 600 cops from Operation Impact to staff new WTC Command - New York Daily News. (n.d.). Featured Articles From The New York Daily News. Retrieved from http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-07-01/local/29740967_1_cops-deputy-commissioner-paul-browne-world-trade-center-command
NYPD 's Stop and Frisk Practice: Unfair and Unjust | Center for Constitutional Rights. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://ccrjustice.org/stopandfrisk
Stop And Frisk Facts | New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) - American Civil Liberties Union of New York State. (n.d.). New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) - American Civil Liberties Union of New York State. Retrieved from http://www.nyclu.org/node/1598
The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD 's Stop-and-Frisk Policy [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rWtDMPaRD8