Pubdate: Sun, 29 Jul 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: William Goodman

STOPS AND FRISKS

To the Editor:

Re "Mayor Backs Bill to Make Police Report Race in Frisks" (news article, 
July 26):

Trumpeting of a City Council bill that would make racial statistics of 
police arrests more available to the public is premature. As far as making 
data on stop-and-frisk arrests available to the public, the new rules would 
likely involve only the numbers already analyzed by the Police Department. 
Statistics often conceal more than they disclose. What is needed is to make 
the entire paper trail of every arrest public and transparent.

More important, the bill doesn't address the primary problem with stops and 
frisks -- the state attorney general's office says only one out of every 
five or six stop-and-frisk incidents is actually reported. Until this issue 
is addressed, the city can be congratulated on its public relations, but 
not on real police reform.

WILLIAM GOODMAN
Legal Director Center for Constitutional Rights
New York
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