About the #HowManyStopsAct
On January 30th, 2024, the New York City Council voted to override Mayor Eric Adams’ veto of Intro 586 of the How Many Stops Act (HMSA) with a supermajority of votes. The passage of the How Many Stops Act will bring urgent and necessary transparency about formerly unreported categories of stops - referred to as level 1 and 2 by the NYPD - which constitute the vast majority of the NYPD’s formal “investigative encounters” with civilians. Thanks to citywide organizing led by those most impacted by the NYPD’s abusive practices – and the leadership of City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams and lead sponsors Public Advocate Jumaane Williams, Council Member Alexa Avilés and Council Member Crystal Hudson – the City Council passed the How Many Stops Act at the end of 2023 with broad support. It was endorsed by the City Council’s Black, Latino, Asian Caucus (BLAC), the Progressive Caucus, 100+ national and local organizations, and 28 family members of New Yorkers killed by the NYPD.
The How Many Stops Act will bring critical and urgent transparency to the NYPD’s daily activities in New York City communities. It consists of two common sense, good government bills that will require a comprehensive accounting of all NYPD street stops, investigative encounters, and consent searches - including for the purposes of DNA collection - and ensure that the hard won Right to Know Act is protected. The data collected via these two bills is crucial for completing the picture of what policing really looks like in our City.
Intro. 586: Reporting on All NYPD Stops and Investigative Encounters, sponsored by Public Advocate Jumaane Williams and Councilmember Alexa Aviles, will require the NYPD to report on all levels of police street stops and investigative encounters, including where they happen, demographic information on the person stopped, the reason for the encounter, and whether the encounter leads to any use of force or enforcement action.
Intro 538: Reporting on all police consent searches, sponsored by Councilmember Crystal Hudson, will provide New Yorkers will a full picture of the NYPD’s use of consent searches in our communities and shed light on whether or not the NYPD is adhering to Right to Know Act requirements by:
- Guaranteeing that the NYPD cannot go back on its promise to report on declined searches by explicitly codifying a requirement for the NYPD to report data on all requests for consent to search, including all requests for consent that are refused and all consent searches that actually take place.
- Requiring the NYPD to report on officers’ use of consent searches to collect DNA information from New Yorkers.
- Requiring the NYPD to report on its officers’ use of interpretation services when seeking consent to search from people with limited English proficiency
Police transparency is an essential measure for holding NYPD accountable for discriminatory and abusive policing practices that criminalize and harm New Yorkers, in particular Black, Latinx and other New Yorkers of color, and make all New Yorkers less safe. The City Council must pass the How Many Stops Act! Ensuring greater NYPD transparency and accountability is fundamental to building a safer city for all New Yorkers.
Download CPR's full How Many Stops Act Fact Sheet that further details the history and impact of the How Many Stops Act.
