Stop-and-Frisk Is Ineffective and Counterproductive: NYCLU

The anti-crime tactic, which involves police officers stopping, questioning and searching pedestrians for weapons or contraband, gained traction in New York City under the administration of Mayor Rudy Giuliani, now a top Trump supporter, but according to the New York Civil Liberties Union there is no evidence the practice has been effective.

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“While violent crimes fell 29 percent in New York City from 2001 to 2010, other large cities experienced larger violent crime declines without relying on stop and frisk abuses: 59 percent in Los Angeles, 56 percent in New Orleans, 49 percent in Dallas, and 37 percent in Baltimore.

Guns account for less than 0.2 percent of stops, according to the human rights group, which contradicts the argument that the practice helps keep weapons off the streets.

Stop-and-frisk abuses are also largely accused of eroding confidence between the police and communities.

According to NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly in 2000: “(A) large reservoir of good will was under construction when I left the Police Department in 1994. It was called community policing. But it was quickly abandoned for tough-sounding rhetoric and dubious stop-and-frisk tactics that sowed new seeds of community mistrust.”

The measure is also discriminatory, claims the organization. “From 2002 to 2011, Black and Latino residents made up close to 90 percent of people stopped, and about 88 percent of stops — more than 3.8 million — were of innocent New Yorkers. Even in neighborhoods that are predominantly white, Black and Latino New Yorkers face the disproportionate brunt. For example, in 2011, Black and Latino New Yorkers made up 24 percent of the population in Park Slope, but 79 percent of stops.”

With the race tightening between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton ahead of the Nov. 8 election, he has been reaching out to African-American voters who, according to opinion polls, largely favor Clinton. Trump has portrayed himself as the "law-and-order candidate." But Clinton has criticized many of his proposals as unconstitutional attacks on so-called American "freedoms."