Simulating Reform: Statistics, Working Consensus, and Stop-and-Frisk Persistence in New York City

According to official statistics, the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program is no more. After a 2013 federal court ruling declared the program unconstitutional, recorded stop-and-frisks fell from a peak of nearly 700,000 in 2011 to fewer than 10,000 by 2020. We demonstrate that this portrayal of the program's demise is more fiction than reality—a simulation sustained through underreporting and reclassification of pedestrian stops into categories that draw less attention. The simulation persists not through deception but through a working consensus involving police, politicians, media, and even advocacy groups. These actors tacitly accept the statistics despite countervailing evidence, allowing each to hold otherwise incompatible positions: officials proclaiming stop-and-frisk outmoded even as the same stops continue under new labels, advocates celebrating its end even as the communities they represent report no real change. Our analysis shows how mechanisms designed to ensure government accountability can become instruments that enable highly scrutinized agencies and programs to evade reform.