Reforming Stop-and-Frisk by Adding More Stops The unpleasant controversy over the police program commonly referred to as stop-and-frisk has disintegrated into a struggle among absolutists. We're not talking here about vodka drinkers. At one extreme, you have people like the city comptroller, John C. Liu, who, when not comptrolling, continues to nurture his ambition to become New York's next mayor. Mr. Liu says that stop-and-frisk is past the point where it can benefit from tinkering, as the police commissioner proposed last week, and even past the point of major overhaul, as recommended by other would-be mayors. No, the comptroller says, this police tactic "doesn't need to be reformed, it needs to be abolished." Abolition is unlikely to take place, let alone win approval from most New Yorkers, until at least the day after the last murder ever is committed in this city and after the last gun ever is carried on the street. At the other end, we have the mayor, his minions and an amen corner of tabloid editorialists and columnists who suggest that any fiddling with mass street searches for weapons will result in people dying by the truckload - horrifying murder rates not experienced here in two decades. And shame on you, they pretty much say, if you wonder how it is that the number of police stops had to increase by 600 percent from 2002 to 2011 to produce a decline in murders during that same period of a commendable yet vastly more modest 12 percent. The City Hall line is that the police operation as currently practiced is all that stands between New Yorkers and chaos. Surely, some semblance of reality lies beyond the inflexible boundaries of these conflicting visions for the city. Please allow us to suggest a third course, which involves neither abolishing stop-and-frisks nor leaving the policy untouched. It's quite simple: greatly increase the number of New Yorkers who are stopped on the street. Overwhelmingly, the people now stopped are African-American and Latino men, a reality that is of enormous concern to the program's critics (who tend to overlook the inconvenient fact that the same demographic is also overwhelmingly responsible for, and victim of, homicides in this city, and would unavoidably be the target of any antiviolence strategy). But if police officers confronted many more New Yorkers, of all races and ethnicities, the racial imbalance would be somewhat corrected. While guns are a paramount worry, they are not the only one. Graffiti remains a problem. Why not have the police intercept customers at stores selling spray paint? It is already illegal to sell such paint to anyone under 21; over the weekend, The Daily News reported that the city had shut down a hardware store for supposedly flouting the law. But teenagers are presumably not the only taggers. Stop, question and frisk anyone seen outside hardware and art-supplies stores. Gum chewers might be stopped, too. We've all seen those hideous splotches on sidewalks, the result of thoughtless people spitting out gum. Police stops might impel them to keep the gum in their pockets and not in their mouths when they're out and about. Bicyclists are another possible target. Those who ride the wrong way or run red lights can create hazards. So can pedestrians with eyes glued to smart phones as they cross the street. Throw a fear of the police into them, and they may start shaping up. This idea is similar to one raised by me a few months ago to expand the pool of New Yorkers who are fingerprinted. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo have been at odds over the city's insistence on digitally fingerprinting applicants for food stamps. Mr. Bloomberg says the practice discourages fraud. But Mr. Cuomo reiterated the other day his call for the policy to be ended because he believes it unfairly stigmatizes the poor. One way to relieve the stigma is to fingerprint many more people getting government assistance, including business leaders. To make sure they abide by their agreements, why not print the executives of companies like Fresh Direct, which recently received tens of millions of municipal dollars in cash and incentives to stay in the city? Fingerprinting all millionaires might stop some of them from even thinking about playing fast and loose with their tax returns. And it should go without saying that all elected officials - or anyone seeking public office, for that matter - must be printed as a deterrent. Bet you that the crime rate in Albany and the City Council has been no better in recent years than what you'll find on the food-stamps line.