Chapter XXXVII: The Cost of Crime in Greater New York

The cost of crime in the city of New York is a question of such vast importance to the taxpayers as to seem bewildering. It is a most difficult thing to follow crime into its various ramifications. If this could be done satisfactorily, it would show that crime enters a larger area than we think it does. The figures given below do not include the building of a new prison on Riker’s Island, which is a needless waste of $4,000,000. This, with many other steals, can be laid to Tammany politics. Kings County Penitentiary, situated on Crown Street, Brooklyn, was sufficient for all the needs of Greater New York for many years to come, but schemers desired the land on which the prison was built, and after some time, had it condemned and the plant and the real estate sold for a song!

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 $15,195,331 00
York

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 134,420 00
Court, 1st Division

Special Sessions and Children’s 94,800 00
Court, 2nd Division

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

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$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 $236,301 50
per cent.

Department of Health, 10 per cent. 248,485 00
for Crime

Department of Charities, 25 per 275,696 21
cent. for Crime

Fire Department, calls for an 4,019,782 75
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

Twenty-five per cent. may safely be 600,000 00
allowed for the Criminal Expense
of the City Law Department,
Appellate Division, Supreme Court
and Miscellaneous Expenses

Commissioners of Jurors’ office, 50 53,550 00
per cent. for Crime

Coroners’ Office, 50 per cent. for Crime
79,850 00
Miscellaneous Criminal Expenses in 220,000 00
the Courts of Greater New York

Private Penal Institutions that 250,000 00
receive petty offenders

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$24,748,738 46

The Cost of Crime to $6,000,000 00
business men and
corporations in
Greater New York
for Private
Police, Detective
Agencies and
Watchmen

Property stolen and $5,000,000 00
not recovered

Bank losses by fraud 1,500,000 00

───────

$12,500,000 00

Loss in Wages to Families of Men 5,000,000 00
Sent to Prison

───────

Total Amount spent yearly on $42,248,738 46
Correction and Repression of
Crime

The budget for the present year calls for the expenditure of $156,545,148.14 to carry on the city government. A little more than one sixth of the money appropriated by the city government for the year is spent on crime.

Admitting then that the expense of crime touches almost every avenue of domestic and civic life, the only question is how long our national, state and city governments can continue to pay such enormous sums for the maintenance of police, courts of justice and the costliest and most expensive kind of prisons and penal institutions that money can build and furnish, without landing the country in irretrievable bankruptcy.

With all the loopholes in the law which favor the murderer, it costs the city at least $10,000 on an average to send him to the electric chair, or even to State prison for life.

There are 200,000 criminals in the land to-day, who are a burden on the taxpayers to the extent of more than a billion dollars a year. But this loss to the country, as we have already intimated, is incomparable with the greater loss sustained by the kingdom of God. The work of reaching these brothers in stripes belongs to the Church, and she should prosecute it continually till she has brought them to Christ for healing and saving power.

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