Senate Bill S7945A

                                BILL NUMBER:S7945A

TITLE OF BILL:
An act
to amend the criminal procedure law, in relation to temporary
questioning of persons in public places in cities with a population
of one million or more

PURPOSE:
To protect the privacy and due-process rights of innocent New Yorkers
who are stopped by the police and subsequently released without
further legal action.

SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
This bill prohibits the police from entering into an electronic
database the personal identifiers of individuals who have been
stopped and/or frisked by police and released without any further
legal action. This provision does not prohibit police from entering
into an electronic database generic identifiers, such as gender,
race, and location of the stop.

JUSTIFICATION:
New York City police routinely stop, question, and frisk New Yorkers
at alarmingly high rates. Most of those stopped are completely
innocent of wrongdoing. And of the hundreds of thousands of
law-abiding New Yorkers stopped every year, the vast majority are
              

black and Latino. In 2009, for example, the NYPD stopped 574,304
individuals. Of those who were the subject of a police stop that
year, nearly ninety percent were people of color; and nine of every
ten persons stopped were released without any further legal action
taken against them. NYPD data demonstrate that the police have
conducted in 2.5 million stops since 2005.(1) However, the problem
of excessive and unjustified street stops is exacerbated by the
NYPD's practice of entering into a an electronic database the
personal information - including names and addresses - of the
millions of innocent people stopped by the police. These individuals
are now permanently under police suspicion and surveillance.

There is no legitimate justification for such a database. According to
the NYPD, the database is maintained for use in future investigations.
But New York city Council Speaker Christine Quinn and Public Safety
Committee Chair Peter F. Vallone, Jr., have pointed out in a letter
to NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly that archiving in a database
information about persons who are innocent of wrongdoing "raises
significant privacy right concerns and suggests that these innocent
people are more likely to be targeted in future criminal
investigations." And the gross racial disparities in the population
subject to a police stop suggest that it will be black and brown New
Yorkers who will be implicated without legal
justification in the those future criminal investigations. No police
department in New York State should maintain a database of innocent

New Yorkers. This bill would prohibit the police from entering into
an electronic database personal information - such as name, social
security number, and address - of innocent individuals who are
stopped by the police and released without further legal action taken
against them. 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.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to State.

LOCAL FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
Nominal administrative fees for change.

EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.

FOOTNOTE:
(1) According to NYPD data provided to the New York City Council, the
police in 2008 stopped 531/159 New Yorkers, 88 percent of whom were
released without further legal action taken. Of those stopped, 51
percent were black, 32 percent were Latino, and 11 percent were white.
In 2007, 468,732 New Yorkers were stopped by the police, 87 percent of
whom were innocent of wrongdoing. Of those stopped, 52 percent were
black, 32 percent were Latino, and 11 percent were white. In 2006,
508,540 New Yorkers were stopped by the police, 90 percent of whom
were innocent of wrongdoing. Of those stopped, 53 percent were black,
29 percent were Latino, and 11 percent were white. In 2005, 399,043
New Yorkers were stopped by the police, 88 percent of whom were
innocent of wrongdoing. Of those stopped, 49 percent were black, 29
percent were Latino, and 10 percent were white.