‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is All but Gone from New York | Hacker News Reader

‘Stop-and-Frisk’ Is All but Gone from New York

nytimes.com

53 pointsBud23 comments

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...

    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.

> As part of a new strategy called Omnipresence

This reads like a cheesy dystopian sci-fi novel.

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panopticon

“a mill for grinding rogues honest”

Seems better than stop-and-frisk. In fact I wonder if the name isn't meant to try to convince the officers on the street that the city is not stripping them of their power.

Huh, I was driving by the Marcy projects today and was wondering what the cops were doing just hanging out.

Reminds me of London's "Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes" campaign: http://archive.wired.com/politics/security/news/2002/11/5615...

Interesting, I wasn't aware that this was due to new policy. I've definitely noticed a dramatically increased police presence on the streets of New York, especially in poorer neighborhoods near gentrifying areas. I also frequently witness police stopping traffic to randomly select cars for some sort of odor/ballistics residue testing. As a resident of Philadelphia, where I seldom see police outside their vehicles, it all feels slightly draconian and disconcerting. I can only imagine what this presence feels like to someone other than a young, white male. I've never felt unsafe in any of these neighborhoods prior to the new "Omnipresence" strategy.

> 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

[2] https://www.drugpolicy.org/news/2011/02/2010-nyc-marijuana-a...

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.

If you do ever compare the crime rates, remember to subtract all the victimless crimes. In fact, total up all the police time and resources wasted on those victimless crimes and consider that as a very strong negative even if it causes the number of "crimes" to tick up by one.

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.

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.

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/nypd-stop-and-...

FTA: "Shootings are up in East New York from 34 to 43 through Aug. 10, a spike of about 27% compared to last year. In Brownsville, shootings are up from 38 to 56, an increase of about 47% over the same time period."

It's probably too early to draw broad conclusions, and more data is certainly needed across more precincts. I also do not entirely trust self-reported police data: politics, pay, and funding might interfere with protecting and serving.

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.

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.

Are these stop and frisks allowed during a citizens arrest?

Still 33,699 too many

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!

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

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).

I realized it was not, honestly, directly germane to HN, but decided to post it because I figured this crowd would into especially-good data visualizations. I'm glad someone else agreed!

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"

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

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