Street Stops and Broken Windows Revisited: The Demography and Logic of Proactive Policing in a Safe and Changing City

Abstract

This chapter examines the development of “order maintenance policing” in New York City. It studies the stop-and-frisk activities of New York City police officers by examining temporal and spatial patterns of stops from 1999, 2003, and 2006. Findings reveal that stop rates have increased by 500 percent since 1999 despite little change in crime rates Stop activity was greatest in poor and minority communities, and stop patterns were more closely tied to demographic and social conditions than to disorder or crime. The efficiency of stops, measured as “hit rates,” dropped considerably, with the sharpest declines occurring in minority neighborhoods. Overall, the findings illustrate that the racial-spatial concentration of excess stop activity threatens to undermine police legitimacy and diminish the social good of policing, while doing little to reduce crime or disorder.

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