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Stop-and-Frisk
Today in New York City, use of stop-and-frisk, which the department justified via the 1968 Terry v. Ohio Supreme Court ruling, has crashed. Yet the statistics are clear: Crime is lower than ever. It’s possible that crime would be even lower had stop-and-frisk been retained, but that’s moving the goalposts. I and others argued that crime would rise. Instead, it fell. We were wrong.
Even if stop-and-frisk were 100% effective, there would come a time when its usefulness ended.
People are very attached to programs that work. It’s tempting to think that a program that works now will work forever.
The reality is that any technique has an effectiveness curve from non-application to over application.
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