Stop, question, and frisk

"Stop, question, and frisk" is a New York City policy designed to reduce gun crimes. Police stop suspicious-looking people, based on a criminal profiling model which includes factors such as race. Supporters claim the policy has reduce violent crime, particularly crime against minorities such as blacks and hispanics. Opponents say that the policy is wrong, because police stop minorities more (on a percentage basis) than the white majority (see Racial profiling).

Dylan Matthews of the Washington Post said,

"Stop, question and frisk" is an NYPD policy wherein police will detain and question pedestrians, and potentially search them, if they have a "reasonable suspicion" that the pedestrian in question “committed, is committing, or is about to commit a felony or a Penal Law misdemeanor."

Proportionality dispute

Critics of the policy claim that since blacks are stopped twice as often as whites, the policy is an example of discriminatory racial profiling. That is the chief reason given by a judge in August 2013 before the city council voted to create an inspector general to oversee the program.

Supporters of the policy cite statistics like the following, which suggest instead that blacks are being stopped significantly less often than their crime rate warrants:

"... the National Institute for Justice (the Department of Justice’s research arm) ... concluded that 'black pedestrians were stopped at a rate that is 20 to 30 percent lower than their representation in crime-suspect descriptions.'"<ref name=wonk-matthews>

See also

• reasonable suspicion
• probable cause