Did New York’s Stop-and-Frisk Policy Make It ‘Too Hot to Carry?’

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

New York City’s mayor Michael Bloomberg and police chief Raymond Kelly repeatedly asserted that NYPD’s aggressive stop-and-frisk policy, which led to over 4.6 million stops from 2004 to 2012, made it “too hot to carry,” that is, deterred firearm offenses and crimes committed with guns. Such crimes were indeed diminishing during this time period. By correlating the number of stops with changes in the proportion of street crimes committed with guns, especially robbery, along with changes in the number of number of shooting incidents, it was found that the stop-and-frisk policy did not significantly reduce the use of weapons. During the most intensive stop-and-frisk years there was a rise in the proportion of robberies committed with guns, and the sharpest declines in major felonies and shooting incidents occurred before this period.

Author

• Barry Latzer, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY