New York City’s stop-and-frisk program has captured national headlines because of how black and Hispanic men are disproportionately affected by the tactic, but according to the Associated Press, Chicago’s stop-and-frisk program is much more robust than New York’s.
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According to a report released Monday by the American Civil Liberties Union, Chicago officers stopped and frisked people at a rate four times higher than New York’s peak count of about 23 stops per 1,000 residents. This data was taken during the same four-month period in 2011.
Chicago officers initiated more than 250,000 incidents in which they stopped, frisked and then let people go during that period, the ACLU report found.
The ACLU’s legal director, Harvey Grossman, described how he was taken aback by the frequency with which Chicago officers were stopping and frisking people, especially since the tactic was adversely affecting and targeting African Americans.
“The Chicago Police Department stops a shocking number of innocent people,” Grossman said. “And just like New York, we see that African Americans are singled out for these searches.”
The ACLU also described how Chicago police officers often didn’t give a “legally sufficient reason” to stop people. When the civil rights organization took a look at the “sample cards” that officers are supposed to fill out to describe why they stopped an individual, half the cards didn’t reveal why the individual was stopped, and in some cases, an individual wasn’t stopped for a reason relating to being a suspect in criminal activity.
Read more at U.S. News & World Report.
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