This book analyzes New York City’s stop-and-frisk data both pre- and post-constitutionality ruling, examining the existence of both profiling and unequal treatment among the three largest groups identified in the database: Blacks, Whites, and Hispanics. The purpose for using these two time periods is to determine which group(s) benefited the most from the ruling. This research goes beyond standard statistics to identify the place that race holds in contributing to the stop disparities. Specifically, this research will adds a spatial element to the numbers by analyzing the determinants of stop location by race, applying a principal component analysis to a mixture of census and stop-and-frisk data to determine the influence of location on stops by race. The results present a way of determining the plausibility of stops being the product of racial profiling–or just a matter of happenstance.
89% of pedestrian stops by the New York Police Department involve non-white persons. The Dept. asked that a study be conducted by the RAND Center on Quality Policing (CQP) to help the New York City Police Department understand the issue of the predominance of pedestrian stops and identify recommendations for addressing potential problems.
Proactive policing, as a strategic approach used by police agencies to prevent crime, is a relatively new phenomenon in the United States. It developed from a crisis in confidence in policing that began to emerge in the 1960s because of social unrest, rising crime rates, and growing skepticism regarding the effectiveness of standard approaches to policing. In response, beginning in the 1980s and 1990s, innovative police practices and policies that took a more proactive approach began to develop. This report uses the term "proactive policing" to refer to all policing strategies that have as one of their goals the prevention or reduction of crime and disorder and that are not reactive in terms of focusing primarily on uncovering ongoing crime or on investigating or responding to crimes once they have occurred. Proactive policing is distinguished from the everyday decisions of police officers to be proactive in specific situations and instead refers to a strategic decision by police agencies to use proactive police responses in a programmatic way to reduce crime. Today, proactive policing strategies are used widely in the United States. They are not isolated programs used by a select group of agencies but rather a set of ideas that have spread across the landscape of policing. Proactive Policing reviews the evidence and discusses the data and methodological gaps on: (1) the effects of different forms of proactive policing on crime; (2) whether they are applied in a discriminatory manner; (3) whether they are being used in a legal fashion; and (4) community reaction. This report offers a comprehensive evaluation of proactive policing that includes not only its crime prevention impacts but also its broader implications for justice and U.S. communities.
A story of resistance, power and politics as revealed through New York City’s complex history of police brutality The 2014 killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri was the catalyst for a national conversation about race, policing, and injustice. The subsequent killings of other black (often unarmed) citizens led to a surge of media coverage which in turn led to protests and clashes between the police and local residents that were reminiscent of the unrest of the 1960s. Fight the Power examines the explosive history of police brutality in New York City and the black community’s long struggle to resist it. Taylor brings this story to life by exploring the institutions and the people that waged campaigns to end the mistreatment of people of color at the hands of the police, including the black church, the black press, black communists and civil rights activists. Ranging from the 1940s to the mayoralty of Bill de Blasio, Taylor describes the significant strides made in curbing police power in New York City, describing the grassroots street campaigns as well as the accomplishments achieved in the political arena and in the city’s courtrooms. Taylor challenges the belief that police reform is born out of improved relations between communities and the authorities arguing that the only real solution is radically reducing the police domination of New York’s black citizens.
Examining racial profiling in American policing, Naomi Zack argues against white privilege discourse while introducing a new theory of applicative justice. Zack draws clear lines between rights and privileges and between justice and existing laws to make sense of the current crisis. This urgent and immediate analysis of the killings of unarmed black men by police officers shows how racial profiling matches statistics of the prison population with disregard for the constitutional rights of the many innocent people of all races. Moving the discussion from white privilege discourse to the rights of blacks, from ideas of white supremacy to legally protected police impunity, and from ideal and non-ideal justice theory to existing injustice, White Privilege and Black Rights examines the legal structure that has permitted the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Tamir Rice, and others. Deepening understanding without abandoning hope, Zack shows why it is more important to consider black rights than white privilege as we move forward through today's culture of inequality.
From the Pulitzer Prize–nominated reporter, an “account of a modern-day Serpico’s battle with an all-powerful police department . . . somber and inspiring” (Publishers Weekly). In May 2010, NYPD officer Adrian Schoolcraft made national headlines when he released a series of secretly recorded audio tapes exposing corruption and abuse at the highest levels of the police department. But, according to a lawsuit filed by Schoolcraft against the City of New York, instead of admitting mistakes and pledging reform Schoolcraft’s superiors forced him into a mental hospital in an effort to discredit the evidence. In The NYPD Tapes, the reporter who first broke the Schoolcraft story brings his ongoing saga up to date, revealing the rampant abuses that continue in the NYPD today, including warrantless surveillance and systemic harassment. Through this lens, he tells the broader tale of how American law enforcement has for the past thirty years been distorted by a ruthless quest for numbers, in the form of CompStat, the vaunted data-driven accountability system first championed by New York police chief William Bratton and since implemented in police departments across the country. Forced to produce certain crime stats each quarter or face discipline, cops in New York and everywhere else fudged the numbers, robbing actual crime victims of justice and sweeping countless innocents into the police net. Rayman paints a terrifying picture of a system gone wild, and the pitiless fate of the whistleblower who tried to stop it. “A tale of crime prevention turned upside down in the Bloomberg era. Rayman has invented a new genre: the police misprocedural.” —Tom Robbins, New York Times–bestselling author
Winner, 2019 Outstanding Book Award, given by the American Society of Criminology’s Division of Policing Section The first in-depth history and analysis of a much-abused policing policy No policing tactic has been more controversial than “stop and frisk,” whereby police officers stop, question and frisk ordinary citizens, who they may view as potential suspects, on the streets. As Michael White and Hank Fradella show in Stop and Frisk, the first authoritative history and analysis of this tactic, there is a disconnect between our everyday understanding and the historical and legal foundations for this policing strategy. First ruled constitutional in 1968, stop and frisk would go on to become a central tactic of modern day policing, particularly by the New York City Police Department. By 2011 the NYPD recorded 685,000 ‘stop-question-and-frisk’ interactions with citizens; yet, in 2013, a landmark decision ruled that the police had over- and mis-used this tactic. Stop and Frisk tells the story of how and why this happened, and offers ways that police departments can better serve their citizens. They also offer a convincing argument that stop and frisk did not contribute as greatly to the drop in New York’s crime rates as many proponents, like former NYPD Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have argued. While much of the book focuses on the NYPD’s use of stop and frisk, examples are also shown from police departments around the country, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, Newark and Detroit. White and Fradella argue that not only does stop and frisk have a legal place in 21st-century policing but also that it can be judiciously used to help deter crime in a way that respects the rights and needs of citizens. They also offer insight into the history of racial injustice that has all too often been a feature of American policing’s history and propose concrete strategies that every police department can follow to improve the way they police. A hard-hitting yet nuanced analysis, Stop and Frisk shows how the tactic can be a just act of policing and, in turn, shows how to police in the best interest of citizens.
We long for diverse, thriving neighborhoods and churches, yet racial injustices persist. Why? Urban missiologist David Leong reveals the profound ways in which geographic structures and systems sustain the divisions among us and create barriers to reconciliation. For the flourishing of our communities, here is a vision of belonging and hope in our streets, cities, and churches.
