According to new data, there’s been an increase in police stops under the Adams administration since he took office in 2022.

According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, police stops have increased about 15% since last year, and only about 5% of the people stopped in recent months are white.

It’s a racial disparity higher now than during the “stop and frisk” era, when about 9% of people stopped were white. “Stop and frisk” was ruled unconstitutional 10 years ago. Police stops steadily declined under the Bloomberg and de Blasio administration, but some are blaming Mayor Adams for the increase.

Adams served more than 20 years on the NYPD. The NYCLU says this is a disturbing trend.

“The NYPD has a long history of targeting Black and brown men for increased surveillance and policing and this form of social control is incredibly humiliating and stigmatizing for decades of people of color within New York,” Daniel Lambright, a senior staff attorney with the NYCLU, told News 12 via Zoom.

“After the federal court held that ‘Stop and Frisk’ was unconstitutional in violation of the 4th Amendment and 14th Amendment, we saw stops go down for a long period of time until recently. And under the Adams administration we’ve seen stops steadily increasing and that suggests that there may be a return to the old ‘Stop and Frisk’ practices,” he said.

The NYPD issued the following statement to News 12:

“A police officer’s authority to stop, question and possibly frisk an individual was firmly established by the US Supreme Court in the landmark case Terry v. Ohio more than 50 years ago. The authority to stop an individual based upon reasonable suspicion of a crime, and frisk that person if the officer perceives a danger, is an essential tool in helping to reduce violence...Whether in carrying out stops, or responding to calls for help from the public, or enforcing the law – the NYPD carries out all of its work without consideration of race or ethnicity. At the start of 2022, the NYPD was confronting double-digit spikes in crime amid the strains of a waning pandemic. Our incoming administration went to work, significantly driving down shootings and homicides and flattening most categories of index crime. Nearly eighteen months later, five of the eight patrol boroughs are down in overall crime, with rapes, robberies, burglaries, and grand larcenies down citywide. We know that there’s still work to be done, but our officers are more engaged and focused than ever. They’ve increased the numbers of arrests by focusing on the drivers of crime, which has resulted in historically high gun arrests and the corresponding seizure of firearms off our city streets. They are eradicating violence and writing more summonses, all while improving our engagement with the community, underscoring our steadfast commitment to public safety for all.”

The NYCLU data also shows that the number of stops that end neither in an arrest nor a summons have increased as well.

They rose to over 70% in the last two quarters of 2023, meaning that three quarters of people stopped were not arrested.

The NYCLU says that trend is also concerning.