A candidate for mayor of New York denounces the thug department's "stop-and-frisk" practice for its evident racial bias.

However, it will be difficult to prevent the decision to search a particular person from being based on race, unless the thugs must show a specific justification for each instance. In other words, searching a person must require probable cause.

Street crime is much less than it was 20 years go, perhaps due to the removal of lead from the children's environment. Even if there was once a reason to allow thugs to search people arbitrarily, it is gone.