Apples, Oranges, and Aircraft Carriers: Rethinking the Stop-and-Frisk Debate

AI Summary: Research shows that proactive pedestrian stops can reduce crime but also produce measurable harms for some individuals. This commentary argues that these outcomes cannot be directly compared because they measure fundamentally different concepts. Future policing should focus on precise, targeted investigative stops rather than broad stop-and-frisk programs.

Why comparing crime reduction and police legitimacy is like comparing apples to aircraft carriers.

Few policing topics generate as much controversy as investigative pedestrian stops, often called "stop-and-frisk." For some, they're an essential crime prevention tactic. For others, they're an example of policing that imposes unacceptable costs on individuals and communities.

So what does the research actually say?

A recent systematic review by David Weisburd and colleagues concluded that proactive stop-and-frisk programs reduce crime by roughly 13 percent. At the same time, the review found consistent evidence that people who are stopped experience negative consequences, including poorer attitudes toward police and adverse mental and physical health outcomes.

At first glance, this seems straightforward. Crime goes down, but there are costs. The obvious question is whether the benefits outweigh the harms. I argue that this question is much harder to answer than many people assume.

The Problem Isn't the Evidence

The systematic review is an important contribution. It carefully summarizes decades of research and demonstrates something many police researchers have suspected for years: proactive investigative stops can reduce crime, but they also create harms for some of the people subjected to them. The challenge begins when policymakers try to compare these two very different outcomes. How do you compare fewer shootings with reduced trust in police?

How do you compare prevented robberies with anxiety experienced by innocent people who are stopped? There is no common unit of measurement.

Apples, Oranges... and Aircraft Carriers

People often say we're comparing apples and oranges when evaluating different outcomes.

In this case, the comparison is even more difficult.

Crime reduction, police legitimacy, mental health, physical health, and officer safety are measured in entirely different ways. Economists have developed methods for estimating the financial costs of crime, but there is no equivalent scale for measuring losses in legitimacy or psychological harm. As a result, local leaders are left making qualitative judgments rather than objective calculations. That's why I describe the comparison as being less like apples and oranges, and more like apples and aircraft carriers. They're simply different things.

Are We Measuring the Right Outcome?

Another issue is that we may be judging investigative stops against the wrong standard.

The legal foundation for a Terry stop was never designed primarily as a crime reduction strategy. The U.S. Supreme Court recognized these stops as a means for officers to investigate suspicious behavior while protecting themselves and others from immediate danger.

In many encounters, the immediate goal is simply to determine whether a person poses a threat—not necessarily to reduce neighborhood crime rates.

That distinction matters.

If an officer conducts a lawful stop, determines the individual is not armed, and everyone leaves safely, has the stop been successful? From the officer's perspective, probably yes.

From the perspective of a citywide crime statistic, perhaps not. Those are two very different definitions of success.

The Danger of Overcorrecting

Following the deaths of Michael Brown and George Floyd, police agencies faced intense pressure to reduce proactive enforcement. Some changes were clearly warranted.

But eliminating investigative stops altogether carries its own risks.

Research spanning several decades has consistently shown that well-targeted proactive policing strategies can prevent violence. Removing investigative stops entirely changes the perceived risk for offenders carrying weapons and may reduce police opportunities to intervene before violence occurs. The question should not be whether police should stop people frequently or never stop people at all. The better question is whether stops can be made more targeted, more precise, and more respectful while still protecting communities from serious violence.

Precision Should Replace Volume

The future of proactive policing is unlikely to involve widespread stop-and-frisk programs.

Nor should it. Instead, the evidence points toward highly focused investigative activity directed at places, offenders, and circumstances where violence risk is greatest. Communities experiencing low levels of violence should not experience unnecessary police intrusion.

Communities suffering persistent gun violence may require carefully targeted proactive policing until conditions improve. Finding that balance remains one of the central challenges of modern policing.

Bottom Line

The evidence suggests that investigative pedestrian stops can reduce crime.

The evidence also suggests they can impose meaningful harms.

What the research does not tell us is exactly how to compare those competing outcomes because they are fundamentally different kinds of measures.

Until we develop better ways of evaluating both public safety and community harm together, policymakers will continue making difficult judgments based on values as much as statistics.

Sometimes the hardest question in policing isn't whether something works.

It's deciding how we measure success.

Citation

Ratcliffe, J. H. (2023). Apples, oranges and aircraft carriers: A comment on Weisburd and colleagues. Policing, 17: paac111. https://doi.org/10.1093/police/paac111

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