Abstract
New York City sits at the epicenter of an extraordinary criminal justice phenomenon. While employing aggressive policing tactics, such as “stop and frisk,” on an unprecedented scale, the City dramatically reduced both violent crime and incarceration – with the connections between these developments (if any) hotly disputed. Further clouding the picture, in August 2013, a federal district court ruled the City’s heavy reliance on “stop and frisk” unconstitutional. Popular and academic commentary generally highlights isolated pieces of this complex story, constructing an incomplete vision of the lessons to be drawn from the New York experience. This Article brings together all of the strands – falling crime, reduced incarceration, and aggressive policing – analyzing the hazy historical and empirical connections between them, and evaluating the legal implications of a crime-fighting policy that might “work” to reduce both crime and incarceration precisely because of the factors that render it unconstitutional.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
10-2014
Publication Information
94 Boston University Law Review 1495-1550 (2014)
Repository Citation
Bellin, Jeffrey, "The Inverse Relationship Between the Constitutionality and Effectiveness of New York City "Stop and Frisk"" (2014). Faculty Publications. 1706.
https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/facpubs/1706
Included in
Constitutional Law Commons, Criminal Law Commons, Fourteenth Amendment Commons, Fourth Amendment Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons