After 1,524 Stop-And-Frisks, Not A Single Gun Found In Marlboro Projects
WNYC created a map that points to the number of stop-and-frisks in relation to the number of gun seizures and numbers don’t quite seem to add up.
WNYC “located all the ‘hot spots’ where stop and frisks are concentrated in the city, and found that most guns were recovered on people outside those hot spots—meaning police aren’t finding guns where they’re looking the hardest.”
In Bensonhurst, police stopped citizens 1,524 times near the Marlboro Houses. Not a single one of those searches gave way to police finding a gun.
Instead, one gun was recovered at Bath Beach Park and another at the Avenue P F-train station.
Commissioner Raymond Kelly and other supporters of the stop-and-frisk process, say that it deters criminals from carrying handguns and that police frequent spots where violent crime occurs most frequently.
Advocates against stop-and-frisk say that it is a major waste of public resources as no guns are actually found in places saturated with cops.
The New York Civil Liberties Union writes, “The NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices raise serious concerns over racial profiling, illegal stops and privacy rights.”
Data shows that out of 685,000 stops in 2011, 770 guns were found. This says that only one tenth of one percent of all stops resulted in cops finding a gun.
Similar results to those found at the Marlboro Houses were also found at the Sheepshead-Nostrand Houses, as well as areas citywide in which the city focuses its stop-and-frisk efforts.
What do you think? Are current stop-and-frisk tactics effective?