“The low discipline levels that we first identified last year have now apparently become policy,” Mr. Case said. “So far in 2008, an even lower percentage of officers were disciplined.” Mr. Case did not provide official numbers for 2008.

Over all, the report found a slight drop in complaints against police officers, down to 7,559 in 2007 from 7,662 in 2006. The board found police misconduct in 8 percent of the cases it investigated fully in 2007, below the average of 12 percent over the last five years. A majority of complaints, as in past years, involved abuse of authority, such as cases in which people say they were stopped and frisked without cause, followed by complaints of use of force, discourtesy and offensive language.

The report included examples of specific cases addressed in 2007. In one, on Nov. 2, 2005, a sergeant stopped two black men walking through a neighborhood in Whitestone, Queens, which is predominantly white. It was 10:45 p.m., and the men told the sergeant that they were looking at real estate.

The sergeant frisked them, finding nothing. When he was interviewed by the civilian board, the sergeant said there had been an increase in burglaries in the area.

The board substantiated the complaint, as per state law, which says that innocuous behavior does not justify frisking. The Police Department did not prosecute the case.

Ms. Schwartz said the men consented to the search. “If you consent to be searched, there’s no misconduct,” she said. “There wasn’t an allegation that they were bullied into it.”

She said she has used the very same case as an example of the gap in understanding between the police and the civilian board. She said the two men in Whitestone were as young as 19, walking down the middle of the street late at night, and that their real estate story was questionable at best.