Requiring narrative justifications for stops reduces ambiguity in police encounters.

Evidence

In 2013, the NYPD mandated via a departmental memo that officers submit narrative descriptions to their supervisors justifying the reasons they had made stops during their shifts. This policy change was made less than two weeks before the start of a trial that would result in a federal judge ruling that how the NYPD had implemented its stop-and-frisk program was unconstitutional and racially discriminatory (Floyd v. City of New York, 2013). — Joseph Avery, Jim Sidanius, Joel Cooper, Gregory Davis, Amanda N., Bias in the Law, 437