The stop and frisk policy was adopted from English law in a number of American courts. In accordance with English common law, without statutory provisions, a police officer has the power to stop, question, and frisk suspects given reasonable circumstances. Based on a standard which holds less than probable cause, this power is granted upon the standard of reasonable suspicion. It is a question of circumstances of each individual case that determines whether reasonable detention and investigation is validated.[7]
Legislation pertaining to constitutional requirements of stop and frisk practices were made into an area of concern by the Supreme Court when they encountered the case of Terry v. Ohio. While frisks were arguably illegal, before this point a police officer could only search someone either after arresting them or obtaining a search warrant. In the cases of Terry v. Ohio, Sibron v. New York, and Peters v. New York, the Supreme Court granted limited approval in 1968 to frisks conducted by officers lacking probable cause for an arrest in order to search for weapons if the officer believes the subject to be dangerous. The Court's decision made suspicion of danger to an officer grounds for a "reasonable search".[8]
Stop-and-frisk is not necessarily a new invention. In the early 1980s if a police officer had reasonable suspicion of a possible crime, he had the authority to stop someone and ask questions. If, based on the subject’s answers, the suspicion level did not escalate to probable cause for an arrest, the person would be released immediately. This was only a “stop-and-question". The “frisk” part of the equation did not come into play except on two occasions: (1)If possession of a weapon was suspected, or (2)if reasonable suspicion of a possible crime escalated to probable cause to arrest for an actual crime based on facts developed after the initial stop-and-question. That all changed in the 1990s when CompStat was developed under then Police Commissioner William Bratton. High-ranking police officials widely incorporated the “stop, question and frisk”.[9]
In 1990, William J. Bratton became head of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton described George L. Kelling as his "intellectual mentor", and implemented a zero tolerance policy because of his contributions to the development of the “broken windows theory”. Former mayor Rudy Giuliani, a Republican, hired Bratton as his police commissioner who adopted the strategy more widely for use in New York City. Giuliani used Bratton and the massive expansion of the New York police department to crack down on crimes. Giuliani's "zero-tolerance" included a crackdown on fare evasion, public drinking, public urination, graffiti artists and the “squeegee men" (who had been wiping windshields of stopped cars and aggressively demanding payment).[10]

The New York Police Department‘s (NYPD) ―stop, question and frisk‖ policy has been a major, highly controversial feature of policing under the Administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The exponential growth in the use of this tactic during the first decade of Bloomberg‘s mayoralty has resulted in nearly five million stops, a stark increase from its prior use. The number of reported stops grew from 97,296 in 2002 to 685,724 in 2011, before dropping to 533,042 in 2012. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly laud the stop-andfrisk policy as a significant component of the City‘s successful effort to reduce violent crime, a means of keeping guns off the street and improving the quality of life in the neighborhoods most affected by crime. Indeed, through a variety of strategies, the crime rate in the City has been reduced substantially over the past 20 years. Indeed, the police must be able to stop and frisk individuals as a crime-fighting strategy, within the limits set by law. However, the stop and frisk policy has raised a number of important concerns:  Only approximately 6% of the stops have resulted in arrests and approximately 2% in the recovery of weapons. Thus, the overwhelming majority of stops result in no discovery of wrongdoing. This is the case even though the law permits the police to make such stops only if they ―reasonably suspect‖ that the person is committing, has committed, or is about to commit a crime, and may only frisk a person who has already been stopped legally if they reasonably believe that the person is armed. These data, plus extensive anecdotal evidence, suggest that many stops may not be justified under federal and state constitutional protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. In addition, many of the arrests occur under questionable circumstances, such as when people are asked to remove marijuana from their pockets and then arrested for possessing marijuana ―in public view.‖  Eighty-five percent of those stopped are black and Latino, and are overwhelmingly male. While the NYPD asserts that is understandable because most of the criminal activity is in neighborhoods with predominantly black and Latino populations, the data suggest that even controlling for neighborhood demographics, black and Latino individuals are stopped more often. The policy has engendered substantial opposition, with those opposed saying it not only violates the rights of many of those stopped but also stigmatizes a substantial segment of the population and further 2 alienates and marginalizes young black and Latino men who face ever more difficult hurdles in progressing within society. In addition, the policy engenders distrust in the affected communities, and the mutual disrespect between the police and the younger generation in those communities undermines confidence in how the police go about their vital work. Given the nature of most of these encounters — stops and searches without arrest or other consequence — the City's stop-and-frisk policy has over the years eluded judicial scrutiny, leaving many to believe they were illegally detained without any effective remedy. In recent years, however, a number of class action lawsuits have been filed against the City on behalf of individuals who have been subject to the policy: lawsuits which seek to challenge the legality of the searches on a mass scale. As discussed further below, these litigations ultimately will address whether the practices at issue comply with the law. In this Report, the City Bar does not take a position on the merits of the claims and defenses in those lawsuits, or otherwise seek to influence the outcome of those proceedings. On the other hand, given that these practices are having negative impacts on many communities in our City, and the resulting ill will that is generated toward the police and law enforcement, we believe it would be imprudent for the City to await a court-determined outcome of the lawsuits before making changes to avoid the destructive social consequences of these stops. Indeed, recent measures taken by the Police Commissioner suggest that the NYPD itself acknowledges the need to better administer its stop-and-frisk policy. To this end, this report reviews the historical background of the City's stop-and-frisk procedures, the legal principles that apply, the justifications for the policy, the concerns that have been articulated about the effect of the stops on individuals and communities, and recent steps the NYPD has taken in an effort to increase public confidence in the policy. We then set forth a number of specific recommendations that would help ensure that a better balance is struck between the NYPD's law enforcement objectives and the need to protect civil liberties and avoid further alienating communities of color, as follows: (1) improving training of NYPD officers as to the law governing stops and frisks and how to operate in accordance with that law; (2) changing NYPD performance incentives from solely measuring numbers of stops to considering the results of the stops; (3) better enforcing the requirement that officers completing the UF-250 forms documenting stops and frisks, as required by law, and also improving the procedure for internal NYPD scrutiny of those forms; (4) amending the Penal Law to make possession of marijuana in a public place a violation rather than a misdemeanor; (5) considering a pilot program testing the use of audio or visual recording of stops and frisks; and (6) establishing an oversight monitor. We also believe more progress can be made through dialogue between officials responsible for implementing the policy and the communities most affected. 3 BACKGROUND Stop-and-frisk policies in New York date from the Supreme Court case of Terry