Ray Kelly can say whatever he wants, but the NYPD's own data, which was extensively analyzed by the NYCLU in 2012, doesn't support their statements. in 2002, Mayor Bloomberg's first year in office, there were 97,296 stops under the stop-and-frisk policy. There were 582 homicides. In 2012, there were 685,724 stops, and 532 homicides. Even if one accepts that the drop is due in part to stop-and-frisk -- a pretty unsupportable position since homicide rates were down by a similar percentage across the country over the same period, even in cities that did not make aggressive use of stop-and-frisk -- that would mean that a 705% increase in stops led to only a 9.4% drop in homicides.
But the question of efficacy in preventing crime is really beside the point. Under the U.S. Constitution, not even the worthy cause of crime prevention gives the state license to trample wholesale over the civil rights of entire communities. There are certain things that a country operating under the rule of law simply does not do, even if they might, on some level, be considered to be effective. Whatever efforts are taken to prevent crime must fall within the parameters of the Constitution, and must operate in a manner that respects the Constitutionally guaranteed civil rights of citizens -- which includes both the right to be free from unreasonable searches, as well as the EQUAL protection of the laws.
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