

‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is All but Gone from New York - Bud
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/19/nyregion/stop-and-frisk-is-all-but-gone-from-new-york.html

======
aaronbrethorst
Of course, right next to this on the NYT homepage is another article entitled
"'Stop-and-Frisk Ebbs, but Still Hangs Over Brooklyn Lives":
[http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/nyregion/friskings-ebb-
but...](http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/20/nyregion/friskings-ebb-but-still-
hang-over-brooklyn-lives.html)

    
    
        As part of a new strategy called Omnipresence,
        the officers now stand on street corners like
        sentries, only rarely confronting young men
        and patting them down for weapons.

~~~
wyager
> As part of a new strategy called Omnipresence

This reads like a cheesy dystopian sci-fi novel.

~~~
RickHull
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon)

“a mill for grinding rogues honest”

------
chimeracoder
> Advocates say misdemeanor marijuana charges, which require that the drug is
> in plain sight, are a bellwether, because the police ordered thousands to
> empty pockets, and arrested them.

Stop-and-frisk in NYC is very closely linked to marijuana laws. To give some
context on the ridiculousness of marijuana laws in New York:

Marijuana has been decriminalized in New York since the 1970s. It was
originally included as part of the Rockefeller Drug Laws, guaranteeing lengthy
mandatory minimum sentences, but after a bunch of kids were getting caught
with dime bags, the _PTAs_ [0] lobbied to issue an exception for possession of
less than 25 grams[1].

Unfortunately, they included a loophole: if the marijuana is either burning or
"in plain sight", it receives the same penalty as if it were over 25 grams,
regardless of the amount. So, police can simply tell people to empty their
pockets, and - presto! - the marijuana is 'open to public view'.

This loophole is so widely exploited that, despite the fact that marijuana is
decriminalized in New York, New York City arrests more people for non-violent,
low-level marijuana possession and more people _per capita_ for non-violent,
low-level marijuana possession than any other city _in the entire world_ [2].

[0] I kid you not!

[1] Not a full ounce, just 25 grams: [http://norml.org/laws/item/new-york-
penalties-2](http://norml.org/laws/item/new-york-penalties-2)

[2] [https://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2011/02/2010-nyc-
marijuana-a...](https://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2011/02/2010-nyc-marijuana-
arrest-numbers-released-50383-new-yorkers-arrested-possessing-small-)

------
theorique
It will be interesting to see the effects on crime rates, if any. The policy
has been controversial, so it will be important to see if it was getting
actual results, or whether it was raising controversy for no reason.

~~~
CapitalistCartr
Reducing crime is no excuse for violating people's rights. Eviciserating the
Constitution will always make the police's job easier. If they could take a
DNA sample from every resident, it would simplify crime-solving. If they could
search every house in a neighborhood without a warrant, hold every suspect in
a crime . . . Police states are certainly efficient that way.

Humans have to balance safety of different kinds to create a livable society.
Safety from fellow citizens versus safety from those we empower to provide
that safety.

~~~
gus_massa
But be careful, because these techniques are also useful to incriminate
innocent people, dissidents and to find a scapegoat when you can't find the
real criminal.

I'll tempted to go full hyperbolic and claim that these techniques are more
useful to increase the incarceration of innocent people than to find the real
criminals, but I'd like to know if someone has measure it and has actual
evidence.

------
mikeash
That's nice, but why is such a blatantly unconstitutional program merely "all
but" gone? Why aren't people in jail for creating or implementing this policy?

I mean, I know the reason: there's a heinous double standard in this country
for law enforcement. If I break the law, I go to jail for a long time. If they
break the law, often nothing happens, even if it results in _me_ going to jail
for a long time unjustifiably.

~~~
Semiapies
Presumably these numbers are _all_ police stops, at least some of which would
be legal and valid. It's the fact that fully 90% of their stops previously
were harassing people for being too dark-skinned in public that blows me away.

------
euroclydon
Are these stop and frisks allowed during a citizens arrest?

------
chrismcb
Still 33,699 too many

------
tptacek
I had flagged this (I'm thrilled that S&F is on the way out in NYC, but can't
imagine how bad the thread would have gotten).

But then I got a nagging feeling after skimming the article and realized that
this is another Mike Bostock piece --- Bostock being the genius behind D3 ---
and flagging Bostock's dataviz journalism can't be a good call. So: unflagged!

~~~
beedogs
Hey, thanks for letting us know you've got some sort of god complex on HN.

~~~
tptacek
What an uncharitable interpretation of my comment!

Stories like this get flagged off the front page all the time. I'm happy to
see this one hasn't, because it is formally interesting (even if the subject
isn't germane to HN).

~~~
glurgh
It is uncharitable and I generally find your 'I flagged this' comments useful,
despite being at odds with the holy guidelines.

But ignore the meaniepants bit - the commenter has a point - "I flagged, then
I unflagged it [etc]" is unintentional drama-generating fluff. You could have
just said "The title makes it sound like a purely political story but it's
really a Mike Bostock thing and worth a read"

~~~
tptacek
Sure. It reads funny because it was (very briefly) a standard "I flagged this"
comment that I went back and edited.

