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 28, 2026, the Monitor filed its Thirty-Third Report, a report on underreporting by the NYPD, with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. Highlights include the following:
- More than a decade after the Court’s 2013 Order requiring that every Terry stop be documented, underreporting remains a persistent and significant problem. More than one-quarter of all Terry stops, including 10,000 in 2025 alone, were never reported.
- Using a weighted audit, Terry stop reporting compliance has ranged from a low of 36% in 2022 to a high of 73% in 2025.
- When officers fail to document stops, unlawful conduct becomes harder to detect, correct, and monitor, and results in undercounting of the number of stops recorded in the Department’s stop and frisk database.
- Persistent underreporting reflects an ongoing lack of accountability. Officers who misclassify stops as lower-level and/or who fail to prepare stop reports are rarely disciplined. These officers’ supervisors and command executives are not held accountable.
- The Department is developing a plan to address underreporting, including developing an underreporting auditing protocol and a uniform system for imposing discipline for failure to document a stop.
