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'Stop and frisk': 7 questions about New York's controversial policing tactic

A federal judge has declared the New York Police Department’s 'stop and frisk' program to be unconstitutional, and new Mayor Bill de Blasio disavows it. Its use has abated under returned Police Commissioner William Bratton, but the fight over it continues. What is it, and does it work?

4. How many people are stopped and frisked?

Seth Wenig/AP/File
A protest against the New York Police Department's 'stop and frisk' program moves down Fifth Avenue in New York in June 2012.

The use of stop and frisk has fallen dramatically under Mayor de Blasio, with 89 percent fewer stops during the first three months of 2014, with about 14,000 stops. 

But the number of people who were stopped and frisked had risen rapidly under the tenure of the previous mayor, Michael Bloomberg. In his first year in office, in 2002, there were 97,296 stops, according to a New York Civil Liberties Union analysis of NYPD data. That number rose to 398,191 stops in 2005 and peaked at 685,724 stops in 2011. Officers made 533,042 stops under the program in 2012.

Throughout the past decade, the vast majority of stops – about 9 in 10 – resulted in no arrest or further action.

Roughly 85 percent of people stopped in any given year are black or Hispanic. In 2012, blacks represented 55 percent of stops, Hispanics represented 32 percent of stops, and whites represented 10 percent of stops.

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Mark Sappenfield
Editor

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