Frisky business
Is the NYPD overusing one of its most effective tools?
By RICHARD THOMPSON FORD
Last Updated: 3:54 AM, June 26, 2011
Posted: 11:01 PM, June 25, 2011
According to the latest figures released by the NYPD, between Jan. 1 and March 31 police officers filed over 183,000 “stop and frisk” reports — more than ever before. As the number of stop-and-frisk incidents increases, so does the controversy surrounding the policy.
Opponents insist that stop and frisk amounts to racial profiling: an excuse to harass innocent people on the basis of unsubstantiated hunches and stereotypes. They point out that most of these stops are not based on descriptions of actual criminal suspects. Instead, they are based on more subjective criteria, such as “furtive movements,” raising the suspicion that the personal biases of police officers are driving up the number of minorities stopped and frisked. Indeed, over half of the people stopped by police were black and over a third were Hispanic: Minorities were roughly nine times more likely to be stopped than whites.
“Racial profiling” has become a catch-all term used to describe any law enforcement effort that disproportionately affects minority groups. But there’s a big difference between singling out people because of their race and targeting people for valid reasons that happen to apply to members of some racial groups more than others.
For instance, minorities are more likely to live in high crime neighborhoods — precisely where it makes sense to concentrate law enforcement efforts. Still, there’s little doubt race plays a role in whom the police stop: Even if police don’t use an explicit racial profile, most officers have some ideas about who is likely to be engaged in lawbreaking. Elderly ladies are less likely to be drug dealers than are young men, and, sadly, blacks and Latinos are somewhat more likely to be lawbreakers than are whites. Overall, the stop-and-frisk numbers are consistent with the demographics of the people arrested and prosecuted in the past. That doesn’t settle the question, but it does suggest that, for the most part, police are acting responsibly.
In 2009, NYPD stops yielded an almost identical arrest rate for all racial groups — about 6%. Opponents of the policy insist that these numbers show that racial minorities are no more likely to be carrying weapons or contraband than whites are. But that’s the wrong conclusion to draw from these figures. If police stopped New Yorkers at random, we’d expect the arrest rate for each group to roughly equal the crime rate for that group. But when police are selective, the arrest rate should be higher than the overall crime rate. So, the arrest rate doesn’t tell us anything about the overall crime rate or how it is distributed among racial groups.
The larger issue — which goes way beyond stop and frisk or “racial profiling” — is the longstanding tensions between police and minority communities. The real problem with stop and frisk is that even if it is a sensible way to fight crime (and New York’s impressively low crime statistics would seem to indicate it is), a disproportionate number of innocent black and Hispanic people are stopped, feeding the resentment that many minorities feel toward police.
That doesn’t mean the stops are racist — or unlawful. After all, plenty of public policies burden one group of people for the sake of the public good. Progressive taxation makes the wealthy pay more for public services than they get in return; anti-smoking laws make smokers stand outside in the cold so that everyone else can enjoy fresh air inside. Likewise, the stop-and-frisk law disproportionately inconveniences young black and Latino men in high crime neighborhoods so that all of the people living in those neighborhoods can be free of crime. Police Commissioner Ray Kelly’s high approval ratings among black voters — 57% to 27% — suggest that this is a trade-off most are willing to accept.
But it’s hard to feel public spirited when being grilled and roughed up by an aggressive cop. A little courtesy and respect from police could go a long way toward making the stop-and-frisk effort more palatable to minority communities. Police should treat the people they stop and frisk as citizens being asked to perform a public service — not as criminals. After all, the overwhelming majority of these people — around 94% — are innocent. And although racial imbalances are probably unavoidable, the disproportionate burden to minorities raises serious moral, legal and public relations questions.
Stop and frisk is a useful element in a larger strategy of preventive policing, but it must be used sparingly and carefully. The record high number of stops should give the city pause. At some point the costs — damage to community relations and the growing risk of litigation — will outweigh the benefits.
Richard Thompson Ford is a professor of law at Stanford Law School and author of “The Race Card: How Bluffing About Bias Makes Race Relations Worse.” His latest book is “Rights Gone Wrong: How Law Corrupts the Struggle for Equality,” coming this November.