“IT'S humiliating,” says Joseph “Jazz” Hayden, a Harlem community campaigner, describing what it is like to be stopped and searched by police. He has been stopped more times than he can count, and he is not alone. New York's police stopped nearly 700,000 people last year, according to a New York Civil Liberties Union report that uses police data. More than half of those were also frisked.

Royalty Young, a 20-year-old black man, has been stopped and frisked several times. “Sometimes I be mad, but I'm not carrying anything, so I don't have anything to worry about,” he says. A weapon was found in less than 2% of searches. More than half of all stops were of blacks and a third were of Latinos. Young black and Latino men make up less than 5% of the city's population, but more than 40% of those stopped. More young black males—168,126—were stopped by police last year than live in the city (158,406).

Police are allowed to stop anyone briefly, but only upon reasonable suspicion that they are about to commit or are committing a crime. Critics think that racial profiling is playing a part. Ray Kelly, New York's police commissioner, adamantly denies this. Instead, he says, the aggressive “stop and frisk” policy is an effective police tactic, which has saved thousands of lives, especially those of blacks and Latinos. Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, says stops are a deterrent. “It's the same reason we set up DWI (driving while intoxicated) stop points.”

A federal judge disagrees, finding the tactic “deeply troubling”. On May 16th Judge Shira Scheindlin ruled that there was overwhelming evidence that stop and frisk has led to thousands of unlawful stops. So she has granted class-action status to a 2008 lawsuit which claims that the city's police discriminate against blacks and Latinos in its use of stop and frisk. The suit also claims that police officers are pressured to meet stop-and-frisk quotas. The police deny that, though the day after the ruling Mr Kelly unveiled new training and monitoring measures which he admits could reduce the number of stops.

New York has no intention of ending the practice, which has taken more than 6,000 guns off the streets since 2004. Mr Bloomberg says without stop and frisk, crime would go up, and points to the 10% increase in murders in Philadelphia after it began closely monitoring the practice. Michael Nutter, Philadelphia's mayor, disagrees. Stop and frisk is still used, he argues; the problem lies with weak gun laws.

The issue is not going away. Potential mayoral candidates have called for the programme to end or have demanded more accountability. And Al Sharpton, the NAACP and other advocates are planning a silent march down Fifth Avenue on June 17th to protest against the policy.