The NYTimes reports today on the tactic known as “Stop, Question, Frisk” as practiced in a troubled and dangerous eight block stretch of Brownsville, Brooklyn. Between January 2006 and March 2010, the police made nearly 52,000 stops:

These encounters amounted to nearly one stop a year for every one of the 14,000 residents of these blocks. In some instances, people were stopped because the police said they fit the description of a suspect. But the data show that fewer than 9 percent of stops were made based on “fit description.” Far more — nearly 26,000 times — the police listed either “furtive movement,” a catch-all category that critics say can mean anything, or “other” as the only reason for the stop. Many of the stops, the data show, were driven by the police’s ability to enforce seemingly minor violations of rules governing who can come and go in the city’s public housing.

The encounters — most urgently meant to get guns off the streets — yield few arrests. Across the city, 6 percent of stops result in arrests. In these roughly eight square blocks of Brownsville, the arrest rate is less than 1 percent. The 13,200 stops the police made in this neighborhood last year resulted in arrests of 109 people. In the more than 50,000 stops since 2006, the police recovered 25 guns.

Emphasis mine.

Remember, everyone stopped — whether they were arrested or not — is entered into a police database that the police claim will help solve future crimes. Stop-and-frisk in NYC has risen from 97,000 stops In 2002, to 580,000 last year.

I lived in NYC from 1975 through 2003. I was in the city when lawlessness and crime was at its worst. I experienced the NYC police as the most impressive and effective in the world as they brought that crime rate down to record levels. They did it through policing innovations including CompStat and Community Policing. It sounds like it’s time for more innovation. Absent that or until then, how about a little common sense:

At the local recreation center in Brownsville, Darryl Glenn, 49, stood in the gym with his son, Darryl Jr., and spoke of the need for officers to be there — but also of the equal need for them to improve their performance.

“If anything, there needs to be more police around,” said the teenager, who is headed to college. But, he said, the officers could better handle some stop situations, particularly by working to get better descriptions of suspects and by communicating more effectively the reason for the stop.

“When they give a description, it’s, ‘Young black man, black pants, blue shirt, black hat,’ ” he said. ‘That’s mostly everybody. A better description would be better, so they can know who they’re looking for, rather than just everyone walking around.”

The police believe Stop-and-Frisk is the best tool they have at their disposal. They believe it’s working. But even those who want the police in the community question the effectiveness of a program that means even the innocent are stopped, frisked, and entered into a database of the criminally suspect.

RELATED: A companion interactive map of NYC police stops and 7 minute video report.

You can find me @jwindish, at my Public Notebook, or email me at joe-AT-joewindish-DOT-com.