Next to the liquor traffic, crime is our greatest National waste for which there seems to be no adequate remedy. Crime burns the candle at both ends as it affects old and young of both sexes in its ceaseless undermining of human character, aiming at the moral and social demoralization of the human race.
If the police were to arrest the hundreds of criminals that remain at large every year in this city, the correction and suppression of crime would cost vastly more than at the present. In all likelihood the expense would not be less than one-fourth of the entire cost of carrying on the Government of Greater New York.
We have made a careful study of the cost of crime in Greater New York, and find that the amount of money appropriated by the civil authorities, according to the figures of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, since consolidation in 1898, has increased every year. Since the boroughs went into partnership, and took the name of Greater New York, crime has increased from fifty to seventy-five per cent. Last year the number of arrests in this city exceeded that of the previous year by more than forty thousand, not to speak of hundreds of the most atrocious crimes on record, such as murder, arson, assault, highway robbery, burglary and larceny, that have baffled the detective bureau to discover the perpetrators.
Crime shows a larger increase in New York than elsewhere, because of the large foreign population, although it is a well established fact that crime is not the result of our foreign-born people as much as of their children, who are classed as native Americans.
In the following table the sums mentioned were appropriated by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment for 1909.
Perhaps I ought to say when we come to deal with the various departments of the city government that are only indirectly connected with crime, we find it more difficult to arrive at correct conclusions. Take for example the sheriff’s office. This official’s work is both civil and criminal. He has charge of the county jail and pays for the support of the inmates. He takes full charge of indicted prisoners for felonies, and after they are sentenced sees that they are safely landed in State prison or penitentiary. But he also deals with many civil processes besides. After making careful allowance, we set aside three-fourths of the sheriff’s entire appropriation for crime.
In the first statement below it will be seen that all the moneys appropriated to the various departments and institutions are spent on the correction and repression of crime alone. Here are the official figures:
| Department of Police of Greater New York | $15,195,331 00 |
| Department of Correction | 1,274,957 00 |
| District Attorney, New York | 371,860 00 |
| District Attorney, Kings | 106,000 00 |
| District Attorney, Queens | 35,500 00 |
| District Attorney, Richmond | 12,900 00 |
| City Magistrates, 1st Division | 355,800 00 |
| City Magistrates, 2nd Division | 328,000 00 |
| Special Sessions and Children’s Court, 1st Division | 134,420 00 |
| Special Sessions and Children’s Court, 2nd Division | 94,800 00 |
| General Sessions, New York | 291,500 00 |
| Juvenile Asylum | 55,005 00 |
| New York Catholic Protectory | 326,500 00 |
| Brooklyn Catholic Protectory | 17,500 00 |
| Jewish Protectory | 50,000 00 |
| Brooklyn Court Rents, etc. | 40,000 00 |
| Miscellaneous Criminal Expenses | 75,000 00 |
| ─────── | |
| $18,765,073 00 |
In the second table the various departments of the city government that are indirectly connected with the repression of crime are mentioned and only a certain percentage allowed for criminal matters.
| Sheriffs of Greater New York, 75 per cent. | $236,301 50 |
| Department of Health, 10 per cent. for Crime | 248,485 00 |
| Department of Charities, 25 per cent. for Crime | 275,696 21 |
| Fire Department, calls for an appropriation of $8,039,565.50. I find after careful inquiry that half of the fires in this city are caused either by wilful or criminal carelessness. Fifty per cent. of that appropriation is spent on crime | 4,019,782 75 |
| Twenty-five per cent. may safely be allowed for the Criminal Expense of the City Law Department, Appellate Division, Supreme Court and Miscellaneous Expenses | 600,000 00 |
| Commissioners of Jurors’ office, 50 per cent. for Crime | 53,550 00 |
| Coroners’ Office, 50 per cent. for Crime 79,850 00 | |
| Miscellaneous Criminal Expenses in the Courts of Greater New York | 220,000 00 |
| Private Penal Institutions that receive petty offenders | 250,000 00 |
| ─────── | |
| $24,748,738 46 | |