They’ve practically stopped stopping and frisking.
The number of civilians who have been stopped, questioned, and frisked by the NYPD has dropped dramatically during the de Blasio Administration, going from a high of nearly 700,000 in 2011 when Mayor Bloomberg was in charge, to a low of 12,000 in 2017, a new report shows.
That’s a whopping 98 percent decrease since its peak eight years ago, according to the study by the New York Civil Liberties Union, which claims the enforcement change hasn’t resulted in a spike in crime.
Still, the civil rights group said the NYPD has a long way to go to address racial imbalance in the controversial practice.
“Despite the decline in stops, there’s been practically no progress in the racial disparity,” said Michelle Shames, a co-author of the report, “Stop and Frisk in the de Blasio Era,” released Thursday.
Between 2014 and 2017 — the years analyzed in the report — about 80 percent of the people stopped were either black or Latino. And, once stopped, that group was more likely to be frisked than their white counterparts, but less likely to be found with a weapon.
NYPD officials said the significant drop in stops clearly shows how officers now police the city.
“This decrease reflects the deliberate shift in NYPD strategic focus over the past several years to precise, surgical targeting of crime and criminals,” a police spokesman said. “The result is fewer stops, and fewer arrests and summonses — all while continuing to drive crime to record low levels.”
Police officials said the department has implemented new training — including scenario-based practice — to ensure stops are appropriate and meet constitutional standards. They’ve also beefed up their Police Academy recruit course and boosted report audits to make sure police were accurately reporting encounters.
“Taken together, these changes not only make New York City the safest big city in America, but also one with dramatically fewer confrontational encounters between police and the people we serve,” the spokesman said.
Police did not address the racial disparities in the report.
NYCLU officials recognized the department’s positive steps in addressing the previous “aggressive” practices, which sparked multiple federal lawsuits and reform, but noted it as just a start in the culture shift among officers.
Donna Lieberman, communications director for the group, said that even though the overall numbers were down, “beneath the surface there’s some troubling data.”
Among the findings:
- Two-thirds of stops resulted in frisks and of those frisk, weapons were found 6.5 percent of the time.
- Two-thirds of all stops resulted in no charges or citations.
- The largest disparity was in younger black men, between ages 14 and 24, who were more likely to be stopped than their white counterparts when compared to the population.
The top-five precincts in stops were:
- 106 Precinct, Ozone Park south Howard Beach, with 5,184 stops
- 120 Precinct, West Brighton Rosebank, with 2,910
- 121 Precinct, New Springville, Elm Park, with 2,757
- 105 Precinct, Queens Village, Rosedale, with 2,604
- 40 Precinct, Mott Haven, Melrose, with 2,572
The lowest 5 precincts in stops were:
- 6 Precinct, Greenwich Village, with 224
- 1 Precinct, Finacial District, 240
- 68 Precinct, Bay Ridge, Dyker Heights, 350
- 17 Precinct, Kips Bay, Murray Hill, Turtle Bay, 374
- 94 Precinct, Greenpoint, 379