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.
Latest Report
On May 6, 2022, the Monitor Team filed the Sixteenth Report of the Independent Monitor with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. This Report covers data and information about NYPD policing in 2020 and 2021.
- The Monitor Team’s review of NYPD policies and practices in 2020 and 2021 shows a continued improvement in NYPD’s compliance with the Court’s reform requirements and with the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments with respect to stops, frisks and searches. The Monitor Team’s review of stop reports and body-worn camera footage showed an increase in the percentage of compliant stops from 2019 to 2020, from 77 percent to 86 percent.
- Working with the Monitor and the Plaintiffs, the NYPD developed and the Court approved new training on constitutional stops, frisks, and searches for both new and current officers. The Department delivered this training to more than 34,300 members of the service, including police officers, detectives, sergeants, and lieutenants.
- Officers are required to document any stop that they make. The issue of police officers’ underreporting of stops remains a concern and limits the extent to which the Monitor can draw conclusions from available data.
- Other issues the NYPD must continue to address include discipline, supervision, offering Business Cards when required, and the development of a process for monitoring compliance with the Fourteenth Amendment.
Featured Story
Real-Time Audits of Recently-Announced Neighborhood Safety Teams
This year, Mayor Adams announced the creation of Neighborhood Safety Teams (NSTs) within the NYPD. The NYPD assigned over 200 members of service to the NSTs and deployed them in 34 commands with high volumes of shootings and other violent crime. The Monitor Team has begun real-time audits of the NSTs. More specifically, the Monitor Team is reviewing BWC videos and stop reports of NST members to assess the lawfulness of their encounters with civilians.
