Wasted Resources: The Failures of Stop and Frisk in Philadelphia

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania has released Wasted Resources: The failures of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia, a policy paper examining the illegal use of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia over the past 15 years. 

Nearly 15 years after the ACLU of Pennsylvania, a professor from Penn Law School, and the law firm Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing, Feinberg & Lin LLP filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Philadelphia over its police department’s illegal and racist use of stop-and-frisk, the police tactic remains an area of great concern for civil libertarians. 

In 2011, the city and the plaintiffs reached an agreement in Bailey v. City of Philadelphia that resulted in a consent decree that included an independent monitor of the city’s stop-and-frisk data. Last year, the Bailey consent decree led to a citywide program that deprioritized the use of stop-and-frisk for minor offenses. The ACLU of Pennsylvania and other criminal legal reform advocates consider this program a success. 

That data shows that city police officers are still stopping and frisking people without having reasonable suspicion of criminal activity or that the person is armed and dangerous. Wasted Resources: The failures of stop-and-frisk in Philadelphia offers a deep dive analysis on the outcomes of the Bailey consent decree.