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NYC Stop-And-Frisk Ineffective, Racially Biased

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New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy appears to have a significant racial bias and is questionable in terms of effectiveness in reducing murders and shootings, according to a new report released by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).

MOSCOW, August 22 (RIA Novosti) - New York City’s controversial stop-and-frisk policy appears to have a significant racial bias and is questionable in terms of effectiveness in reducing murders and shootings, according to a new report released by the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU).

Under New York’s former mayor Michael Bloomberg the stop-and-frisk policy led to over five million encounters on the streets of The Big Apple, the NYCLU report, released this week, says.

New York Police made almost 100,000 stops in 2002, the year Bloomberg took office. By 2011, the New York Police Department (NYPD) had conducted over 600,000 searches. Police officers stopped and frisked pedestrians on a number of seemingly suspicious grounds, but recovered guns less than 0.02 percent of the time, according to the report.

Only three percent of the stops made between 2009 and 2012 led to convictions, and just 0.1 percent led to convictions for a violent crime, according to analysis of the stop-and-frisk policy released by New York State Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman in November. Of the 150,000 arrests made in that time period, only 51 percent actually led to convictions or guilty pleas. The remaining 49 percent led to no prosecution or a probationary period.

A quarter of the stops made by NYPD officers during Bloomberg’s 12 years in office involved young African-Americans males, who made up less than two percent of the city’s population, according to The Washington Post.

In August 2013, US federal judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that the NYPD’s 4.4 million stop-and-frisks made between 2004 and 2012, 80 percent of which involved African-American or Hispanic individuals, were made in violation of the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the US Constitution.

Judge Scheindlin’s ruling did not end the practice, but it does necessitate reforms, which have been promised by Bill de Blasio, who took office as New York’s mayor in January 2014, amid massive public outcry against the stop-and-frisk policy.

According to the New York Daily News, police in two of the city’s toughest neighborhoods, Brownsville and East New York, recorded 99 percent fewer stop-and-frisks during the first half of this year.

Only 126 people were stopped in the first half of 2014, compared to 10,540 stops between January and June of 2011.

However, shootings in the Brooklyn neighborhoods are on the rise, with a spike of about 27 percent in East New York and an increase of about 47 percent in Brownsville in the period from January 1-August 10 of this year, compared to the same period last year.

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