For the sake of safety, do not force the NYPD to prioritize paperwork over police work

A coalition of New York business owners explains here why the How Many Stops Act will make the city less safe, and argues that Mayor Adams’ veto of the bill must stand. The authors (from near right) are: Nick R. Lugo, chairman and president of the New York City Hispanic Chamber of Commerce; Jackie Rowe-Adams, a founder of Harlem Mothers SAVE; and Nelson Eusebio, former National Supermarket Association executive director and the NSA’s government-relations delegate.

How do we want our tax dollars spent — on paperwork or police work?

Ask any New Yorker on any street in any neighborhood and you will likely get the same answer: police work, not paperwork.

And an important part of that police work is building trust with community members — work that is done in person, not online, one conversation at a time.

That is the fundamental problem with the City Council’s recently passed How Many Stops Act. This bill would require the NYPD to file a report on any and all interactions with the public — including those noted as Level 1, which are not targeted interactions but the daily work of a committed and engaged police officer.

Workload nightmare

The current system is focused on reporting only the most serious encounters, those deemed Level 3 and Level 4 on a four-point scale. This bill would force the NYPD to report every Level 1 and Level 2 encounter as well — exponentially increasing officers’ workloads and creating strong disincentives for New Yorkers to engage with law enforcement.

Let’s be clear: There has been a history of overpolicing in our city that’s led to a new era of better oversight and improved protections for all New Yorkers, especially people of color. As advocates who have always fought for greater accountability from our police officers, we support the vision of fairness and justice that this bill’s supporters are putting forward.

But the How Many Stops Act, however well-intentioned, would have a massive knock-on effect for every aspect of law enforcement and incur staggering costs for police overtime at a moment when the city is struggling to keep New Yorkers safe despite budget cuts.

On top of being impractical, requiring universal reports would be significantly more intrusive, requiring police officers to report on the race, ethnicity, gender and age of every person involved, as well as detailing the circumstances surrounding that encounter.

This raises serious privacy concerns that would have the unintended consequence of deterring New Yorkers of all backgrounds from speaking to officers — a result that will make our communities less safe, not more so.

Unintended effect

We support every effort to make law enforcement more transparent, more just and more accountable — including the reforms that have led to a 98% drop in stop-and-frisk encounters from 2011 to 2022.
But this bill is a classic case of a law that will cause more problems than it will solve and create more tension when we are finally making progress.

Police officers should be encouraged to have honest conversations with those in their communities — and ask community members for their help in keeping our streets safe. Reducing every interaction between an officer and a citizen into another set of data points to be entered is the opposite of community policing.

This is not the outcome we are looking for as we seek to protect New Yorkers. We want to make sure we are building community — not barriers. The best way to do that is not to increase paperwork but to support quality, community-based policing that respects all New Yorkers and gets real-world results.