NYS Senator Eric Adams announces passage of S7945, his legislation modifying NYC’s ‘Stop and Frisk’ law. The law would bar the NYPD from maintaining a database on hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers. Currently, the NYPD maintains a database of the names of stopped individuals, even when no charge is filed and no arrest is made!
Senator Adams states: “The NYPD maintains a database of people who have been stopped, questioned, and frisked, even if those persons are innocent of any wrongdoing. This is an unconstitutional, un-American invasion of privacy. People of color are especially victimized: 80-90% of those stopped are black or Hispanic.
“What is the intrinsic value of a program under which fewer than 6% of those stopped are arrested and fewer than 2% are found to be carrying weapons?
“The police must desist from maintaining information on individuals arrested after street stops but cleared subsequently of criminal charges. The police must cease compiling a database of those not even arrested or given a summons after being stopped, questioned, and frisked. The police must purge their current database of the names of innocents.”
“My bill would not prohibit stop and frisk, or the collecting of information concerning where stop and frisk occurs, or generic information about those stopped (race, sex, physical features). However, it would bar the police from entering into an electronic database personal information, such as name, social security number, and address of innocent individuals who are stopped but released without further action. This statutory prohibition is needed to protect the privacy and due process rights of the hundreds of thousands of innocent New Yorkers who are stopped and released each year.
“I am extremely gratified that S7945, my bill to amend criminal procedure law in relation to the temporary questioning of persons in public places (commonly referred to as ‘stop, question, and frisk’) has passed the State Senate.”
