S.T.O.P. Report Shows NYPD Manipulates Crime Data

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For Immediate Release S.T.O.P. Report Shows NYPD Manipulates Crime Data (New York, NY 6/12/24) – Today, the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.), a New York-based privacy and civil rights group, released Seeing is Misbelieving: How Surveillance Technology Distorts Crime Statistics, a report detailing NYPD’s manipulation of crime data and its effects on law enforcement policy in New York City. Driven by selective over-policing of certain offenses and of BIPOC communities, historic crime data informs the placement and output of surveillance technologies. In turn, surveillance tech perpetuates racist policing, skewing the crime statistics that shape public policy narratives surrounding policing. The report highlights safeguards that every locality can implement to regain control over public safety data. SEE: S.T.O.P. Report - Seeing is Misbelieving: How Surveillance Technology Distorts Crime Statistics https://www.stopspying.org/seeing-is-misbelieving “How safe are our cities? The NYPD and other police agencies make it hard to say,” said Surveillance Technology Oversight Project Research Director Eleni Manis. “We’ve long recognized that police massage crime data to meet policing goals. But surveillance technologies make crime statistics even worse. We need a better grasp on reality if we hope to effectively boost public safety—and that means independent checks and audits of police provided crime data.” Key Findings Include: Police data fails to track reality due to selective policing of particular offenses and particular communities; “Predictive policing” tools provide an objective-seeming, supposedly data-driven cover for racist patrol patterns in cities with records of racist and corrupt policing; ShotSpotter detectors inflate and concentrate a city’s awareness of gunshots in BIPOC communities while missing gunshots entirely in neighborhoods where they’re absent. The same effect is seen when any type of detector is deployed selectively; NYPD’s expansive “gang database,” filled with entries resulting from the racial profiling of Black and Latinx youth, inflates gang crime counts and obscures the true toll of gang activity; Audits of crime statistics using external data such as insurance claims, auto repair records, and other non-police data can provide insight to where official crime statistics fall short or overstate crime. S.T.O.P.’s 2023 report Guilt by Association: How Police Databases Punish Black and Latinx Youth looked at the unconstitutional surveillance of young people through gang databases. S.T.O.P.’s 2022 report ShotSpotter and the Misfires of Gunshot Detection Technology detailed how ShotSpotter’s error-prone software targets Black and Latinx neighborhoods, increasing the risk of police violence, while failing to solve or reduce gun crimes. SEE: S.T.O.P. Report - Guilt by Association: How Police Databases Punish Black and Latinx Youth https://www.stopspying.org/guilt-by-association S.T.O.P. Report - ShotSpotter and the Misfires of Gunshot Detection Technology https://www.stopspying.org/shotspotter The Surveillance Technology Oversight Project is a non-profit advocacy organization and legal services provider. S.T.O.P. litigates and advocates for privacy, fighting excessive local and state-level surveillance. Our work highlights the discriminatory impact of surveillance on Muslim Americans, immigrants, and communities of color. --END-- CONTACT: S.T.O.P. Executive Director Albert Fox Cahn. Copyright © 2021 Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, All rights reserved.