Significant Step in the NYPD Stop and Frisk Case

Police reform in New York City just took a significant step forward, and the voices of the people most affected by unlawful and discriminatory stops are front and center.

When a federal court ruled in Floyd v. City of New York that the NYPD’s stop and frisk practice violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments, it was a tremendous victory. We knew, though, that the victory was not yet complete: The task of reforming the NYPD’s practices and ending racial discrimination in the use of stop and frisk remained.

In Floyd—a lawsuit spearheaded by the Center for Constitutional Rights—the federal court ordered the NYPD to work with the plaintiffs and a court appointed monitor to develop changes to the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices and to design a process for direct community input into how the NYPD’s practices will be reformed. This community input process is called the “Joint Remedial Process.” After a year of planning, the Joint Remedial Process is finally underway.

For now, here are a few exciting highlights:

• The process will begin with 25 focus groups from 25 NYPD precincts and about 70 neighborhoods across all 5 boroughs.
• Focus groups, which will run from fall through winter, will be comprised of the people most affected by the NYPD’s stop and frisk practice -- that is, Black and Latino people and people who live in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods -- and participants will be selected in collaboration with dozens of community organizations.
• Data from the focus groups will be reviewed and translated into reforms that will go through further vetting with additional community input, including facilitated community meetings early next year.
• The result will be a package of NYPD reforms designed and developed from community input that will be submitted to the Court. The NYPD will be ordered to implement all reforms that the Court approves.

To learn more about what the joint remedial process entails, read our FAQs page.

We’d also like to point you to the monitor’s website, where you can find information about the monitoring process and all of the reforms being developed. You can also submit comments and feedback. If you have been affected by the NYPD’s unlawful stop and frisk practice, we encourage you to make your voice heard.  

Allowing the community to participate in reforming the NYPD’s stop and frisk practices is profoundly important to ensuring real and long lasting reform. Much work is yet to be done, but we are hopeful today.