Our Mission & Focus
The Monitor Team works to ensure that the NYPD engages in constitutional stops, frisks, and searches.
The Monitor Team’s focus is on the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk practices, as well as its trespass enforcement. The Monitor Team regularly assesses the NYPD’s compliance and publicly files reports with the court detailing their findings.
Know Your Rights
When you are stopped, frisked, and/or searched by a New York City police officer, you have certain rights.
Who We Are
Latest Report
On September 4, 2024, the Monitor filed its Twenty-First Report, regarding NYPD compliance with court-ordered Terry stop, frisk, and search policies and procedures, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Highlights include the following:
- The number of Terry stops and the proportion of Terry stops, frisks, and searches which are unconstitutional are increasing. From 2020 to 2023, the number of Terry stops increased by more than 75%. From 2021 to H1 2023, the proportion of those stops which are unconstitutional rose from 10.6% to 12%. In the same time period, the proportion of unconstitutional frisks rose to 31% (from 15.8%), and unconstitutional searches rose to 33% (from 20.4%).
- Specialized units continue to make more improper Terry stops than patrol units. In H1 2023, specialized units made 54% of the improper stops, frisks and searches. And, in the same period, only 4% of patrol unit stops were unlawful, compared to 12% of specialized unit stops.
- Underreporting of Terry stops remains a problem, with the rate of underreporting increasing. In 2022, 31.4% of Terry stops were not documented.
- Housing Bureau Terry stops are less compliant than those of the Department as a whole. Reasonable suspicion stops and lawful search rates were both lower as compared to Department-wide statistics. However, Housing Bureau trespass arrests are compliant.
- The Department must ensure that supervisors are more thoroughly reviewing the constitutionality of their officers’ Terry stops. Data showed that supervisors routinely approved improper Terry stops, and often participated in the improper frisks and searches themselves.
- The Department has recently made changes and taken steps to monitor compliance with Terry requirements. These steps include the implementation of ComplianceStat, to address accountability within commands; and work on a Fourteenth Amendment compliance plan. But room for improvement remains in other areas, including with respect to the Early Intervention Program.
