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May 30, 2017, New York –The monitor overseeing reforms to the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices in the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) case, Floyd v. City of New York, filed a report today analyzing racial disparities seen in the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk data from the last three years. CCR issued the following statement in response:
Despite the significant reduction in the number of recorded stops over the past three years, the severe racial disparities in who gets stopped persist. Black and Latino New Yorkers continue to comprise the overwhelming majority, more than 80 percent, of people stopped by the NYPD. Using the same statistical analysis that the federal court relied on in its 2013 ruling, the monitor found that race continues to be a significant predictor of stop rates, even after controlling for higher crime rates in certain parts of the city. Blacks, the report shows, are more likely than Whites to get frisked, but less likely than Whites to have a weapon on them when they are frisked. In sum, this report tells us that, while some progress has been made, the NYPD still has much work to do to end racial bias in its stop-and-frisk practices.
In August 2013, the Center for Constitutional Rights won a landmark ruling that found the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices to be racially discriminatory and unconstitutional under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. The court appointed a monitor to oversee reforms resulting from CCR’s case, Floyd v. City of New York, and two other related cases, Davis v. City of New York, brought by the Legal Aid Society and the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Ligon v. City of New York, brought by NYCLU, The Bronx Defenders, and LatinoJustice PRLDEF. In addition to specific reforms, such as body-worn cameras, the court ordered a Joint Remedial Process (JRP), which is intended to solicit substantive input from directly-affected communities, as well as other stakeholders, on further reforms to the NYPD’s stop-and frisk-practices.
Read more about Floyd v. City of New York on CCR’s case page.
Covington & Burling LLP, Demos, and Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP are co-counsel in the case.
The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.