Crime in New York

The New York Times reports that Michael R. Bloomberg, mayor of New York City announced an addition of 800 police officers and 400 civilians to the city’s police department. The police force lost 1,000 officers who were assigned to intelligence and counter terrorism tasks. This has become a major part of the city’s safety precautions. Detectives are deployed to gather information overseas and officers carry out random searches of bags and packages brought into subways. Since 2001, the city gained 125,000 new residents and the mayor believes keeping crime rates low is essential for future growth of the city. While the majority of big cities saw an increase in street crime in the past year, New York City’s crime rates have been at an all time low. Crime in the city has fallen by 25% since 2001.

Throughout the Gilded Age, there was a major internal migration from the farms into the cities. New York City, Philidelphia and Chicago ermerged as cities with populations over one miliion. An approximated seven million immigrants poured into the country between the years of 1865 and 1900. They settled mostly in large cities in tenements. The large internal migration along with immigration caused overcrowding in tenements, disease and also an increase in crime. These big cities needed to controll the rising crime rate caused by the large swell in pupulation. There was an increase in the police force, street lights were put on streets and there were also discoveries in criminal science. It was during this time that fingerprinting was first used in fighting crime.