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Documented Stop & Frisks Down A Whopping 64% In 2013
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 13, 2014
Modified Mar 13, 2014
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 13, 2014
Modified Mar 13, 2014
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Overall stop-and-frisks, stop-and-frisk complaints, and police misconduct complaints all decreased considerably last year, according to the latest report from the Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB). The annual report, which you can peruse in full below, reveals that the number of stop-and-frisk complaints dropped from 1,496 in 2012 to 1,364 in 2013, a 9% decrease.
And most remarkably, the number of documented NYPD stop-and-frisks dropped an overall 64% from 533,042 in 2012 to 194,000 in 2013. As it happens, this decrease in documented stops comes in the wake of a change in NYPD policy: In March of last year, in the midst of a landmark lawsuit over stop-and-frisk, NYPD brass also ordered officers to more thoroughly document their stops on the so-called UF-250 forms.
Altogether, there were 5,410 complaints about police misconduct in 2013, a 6% decrease from 2012 and a 29% decrease from 2009, when a record 7,660 complaints were filed. The CCRB conducted 2,082 full investigations in 2013, successfully mediating 132 cases.
152 officers were disciplined by the NYPD for cases previously substantiated by the CCRB.
And it seems the CCRB is either getting better at investigating cases (possibly due to recent reforms), or cases are becoming more easy to investigate: CCRB substantiated misconduct in 31% (191) of the stop-and-frisk cases that it investigated in 2013. By comparison, in 2010 and 2011 the substantiation rate was 16% and in 2012 the board substantiated misconduct in 27% of stop-and-frisk complaints.
A few more interesting pieces of information to draw out of the report: people were most likely to complain about an NYPD stop if they were also frisked. While officers documented searches in 9% of street encounters, 55% (745) of the 1,364 stop-related complaints in 2013 contained an allegation of an improper search; 40% of stop-and-frisk complaints included an allegation of improper force, a statistically insignificant change from 39% in 2012.
The CCRB notes that there should be an asterisk attached to the first two months of 2013: due to the after-effects of Hurricane Sandy, the CCRB’s toll-free 800 number was out of service and was not restored until March 2013. Thus, there were 50% fewer calls for January and February in 2013 than there were in 2012, but they note, "civilian complaints to the CCRB have been steadily declining since the highs of 2006-2009 when there were over 7,000 complaints per year."
Tagged
CCRB
nypd
police
stop and frisk
street encounters
original
Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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