New York City’s expanded emphasis on gang suppression is being driven by the legal and political pushback against “stop-and-frisk” policing. She says that when police lost the ability to engage young people of color through street stops, they developed new but similarly invasive gang policing techniques under a new name. In both cases, black and brown youth are singled out for police harassment without adequate legal justification because they represent a “dangerous class” of major concern to police.
