Crime in the Cities

hey whenever a brutal crime occurs in a city everybody knows about it and everybody worries especially those in the neighborhood in some neighborhoods that have been terrorized by one or more violent crime citizen patrols have been organized to discourage prowlers and everywhere in big cities there seems to be a feeling that personal safety is threatened as perhaps never before i lived in brooklyn where a motor incorporated was when i was a kid brown's released new york section i used to go to the racetrack with these fellas when i grew up i knew them i used to play cards with them i used to shoot crap with them to say be relish and bugsy goldie posting in these colors they never harmed anybody in the streets this is a new element this is a different element every kid carries a switchblade knife and a pocket knife and every cha every every one of these kids are potential killers they should outlaw all these knives nobody should be allowed to carry a knife i've been driving the cabin practical online about thirty four five years and seen just about everything be seen around here and i think now it's more prime now than it was back in the early days they'll knock you in here now for nearly anything some of these folks are people just afraid to be out at night that way [Applause] we had a driver out of my garage who was killed in a robbery we have another one recent you know about i would say two months ago a fellow went to beat him out of the fair ran into an alley he found him followed him into an alley so he got his throat cut do you get the feeling from your passengers of fear in the city yes i do and especially from the women passengers because uh you know how things are today and the way these youngsters do is snatching women's purses they're mugging women and pulling in the hallways and raping them and we're in a position i'd be afraid too well quite a few have expressed those fears and most women won't go out at night after dark you can't blame them either because they've been quite uh an increase in the attacks and assaults people waiting for buses having their bags to from coast to coast there is apparently a feeling that american cities have turned into jungles of crime and violence and there is a need for protection a need some people are able to satisfy better than others well uh at the present i don't think new york city is safe at all we who live at the patio gardens i think are very fortunate it has given us a sense of security it has eliminated all the anxiety and tension that one has ordinarily coming home late at night i have a young teenage daughter and certainly where we lived before if she had to come home late i was very nervous about it but now i don't have any qualms at all and in a poor neighborhood it's not a bad block it's our home but it does have many things about it that we would like improve for instance we'd like good housing all the way around and also we have an element in the block that has given us a great deal of trouble and that doesn't seem to be anything that the law can do about it we have been subjected here for a long time to junkies uh dope addicts as you would call them and it's nothing to see them actually selling the dope in the street and the children have become accustomed to seeing junkies actually under the influence of drugs which of course is not good now i don't know whether you're aware of how the security system is worked at the patio garden there are no key issue to any of the tenants to the front door of the lobby this is controlled by the guard in the gatehouse he questions the people as they enter the building and he will not open the door unless he knows the person that is coming in mr chrysler is here to see you the elevators are terrific we have televisions in the elevators where we can be viewed by the guards in the security house and actually you wouldn't find objectional people coming into the elevators because they have no means of getting into the elevators of course everyone can't afford such security however i think this should be available to everyone i don't think it's luxury i think it's necessity uh at the rate the crime wave has hit the city uh everyone should have this protection i think it would mean an awful lot well naturally uh if you've got every device for safety it discourages someone to try to commit a crime we don't have a door on 114th street that locks not an entrance door and if the landlord puts a lock over there the junkie knocks it off so i guess you would need maybe six guards on each door in this block no doorman at all in this block none whatsoever in fact we just do have doors our homes aren't even safe if we go out we never know when we come back whether we're going to find what we left or not we are safer here with the doors opened and locked because if you got good leg work and you need it on 114th street you might have a chance to break free of your own of your own volition in other words if the doors were locked no one would hear an in this particular area for someone to hear you in distress is of greatest importance because if you are alone out here brother you are really a type almost everything we hear and read seems to justify the fear that we're being overwhelmed by a wave of crime and violence us news and world report describes the situation as crime running wild city streets turning into jungles murderers rapists muggers robbers on the loose in cities and suburbs why this explosion in crime professor richard cloward columbia university school of social work and i think there's also probably good reason to think that the anxiety is being whipped all out of proportion to the problem that while there may have been some increase in violence i find it difficult to believe that the increase is as large as one would one would judge if you just read the newspapers and listen to the radio and watch tv is the problem of violence and crime being exaggerated the fear is based on more than local news reports of murders rapes and muggings it has been reinforced by statistics compiled on a national level by the federal bureau of investigation the figures indicate that serious crime is up 40 since 1958 and is increasing five times faster than population since 1930 the fbi has acted as a clearinghouse for information gathered by police departments throughout the country it has tried continually to improve the accuracy and uniformity of police reporting methods each year the fbi publishes a report on crime in the united states the latest complete year is 1963. in nineteen sixty three there were two hundred seventy two thousand eight hundred sixty violent crimes in the united states about fourteen percent of the total of what is classified as serious crime does the volume of crimes of violence today warrant the crisis atmosphere that exists the category of murder is the first in the fbi uniform crime reports there were 8500 murders in the united states in 1963 not unexpectedly a certain number of these created wide public shock and fear yet the 8500 murders bear little relation to the fear the fear of being attacked by an unknown assailant the fact is that the vast majority of murders were committed by members of families in the same family or by friends of the 8500 murders only 1100 or one out of eight were committed by strangers the vast majority of murders in family groups and among friends grew out of petty arguments the fbi mentioned such causes as disputes over cigarettes or ice cream or noise when murder statistics are seen in a long perspective the crisis atmosphere seems unwarranted doctor thurston celine president of the international society of criminologists the homicide has been declining in the united states the rate has been falling compared with 1924 for instance in late years the the rate has dropped only to about 60 percent of what it was and in the last 10 years it has been remained reasonably stable sometimes usually falling a little and sometimes showing a slight upward trend for a year or two [Music] there is no likelihood that any rate is going to always continue in the same direction every year but that is one crime that we can say has been falling the fbi report lists 100 000 robberies in 1963 robbery is described as stealing anything from a person by force or violence the statistics show a steady increase in robbery over recent years there were sixteen thousand four hundred cases of forcible rape in nineteen sixty three despite the public attention paid to rape the fbi report says there has been little increase in such attacks in recent years the category of rape includes attempt to rape the public tends to associate narcotics addicts with rape and crimes of violence experts who have studied the problem can't predict this individual who is involved donald goth head of the correctional association of new york well a narcotic addict generally is a pretty inadequate individual who is trying to escape from something whatever it may be and generally our experience has been that they're pretty passive individuals that they're not uh actively aggressive and certainly one of the things that we know from pharmacology is that an addict who is using heroin has lost all sex motivation i mean uh the the uh uh well some of the reports of the rapes and what have you uh that allegedly are committed by an addict just don't hold up they they honestly don't hold up because heroin has built within it the fact that it uh it acts as an inhibiting factor rather than a a sex drive factor aggravated assault is the fourth and largest category under crimes of violence technically it is assault with attempt to kill but many police list all quarrels in which there is bodily harm as aggravated assault there are more cases of aggravated assault than murder rape and robbery combined the crimes that produce most of the fear crimes of violence account for a relatively small percentage 14 percent of all incidents listed by the fbi there is a much larger category to be considered there were almost 2 million burglaries larcenies and auto thefts in 1963. together they accounted for about 86 percent of what was classified as serious crime in the united states these are known as crimes against property as opposed to violent crimes crimes against persons crimes against property are fundamentally money crimes and it's these categories rather than crimes of violence that represent the great rise in crime statistics [Music] the shocking statistic in the fbi report that crime is increasing five times faster than population does not refer to crimes of violence most of the increase is due to breaking and entering pilferage and theft and the like the confusion arises because most of the crimes americans read about are crimes of violence but the official crime rates refer cheaply to crimes against property most of the items that police recover from burglaries are petty yet each represents a statistical rise in the crime rate any attempt to understand what is happening on the criminal scene in america must take account of the statistics puzzling though they may be yet the layman is rarely equipped to interpret the figures properly automobile theft accounts for approximately 360 million dollars in money value on the crime chart yet three times out of four the car was taken for a teenage joy ride for temporary transportation the question remains unchanged does the volume of time today warrant the crisis atmosphere that exists harper's magazine 1853 the increase of crime is becoming one of the most startling notices in our daily newspapers three four five and in one case eight murders are announced for new york for one week we are becoming familiar with what twenty years ago would have shocked the universal conscience a book published in 1910 stated crime especially in its more violent forms and among the young is increasing steadily and is threatening to bankrupt the nation a few years ago this was the preface to an article in life magazine the nation in the fall of 1957 appears to be threatened by a catastrophic wave of crime from almost every major city in the past year have come frightening reports showing not merely an increase in the number of crimes but a dreadful shift it seems in their nature incredible brutality is the prime characteristic of contemporary murders the vandalism of juveniles is no longer understandable but has become savage and wanton beyond belief there have always been crime waves and youth is usually held responsible the problem is not simply one of crime but also what seems to be an inevitable gulf between generations the baby boom that followed world war ii is now confronting americans with an explosion of youth and from their elders comes a reaction that is not surprising the new music is considered immoral the new dances lascivious the young people desolate and degenerate [Music] do [Music] [Music] teenage prime has increased largely because of the tremendous growth of the youthful population however to conclude that today's young people are more degenerate or savage than those of past generations would be a mistake i think we have a sort of a natural disposition to to believe at any one time when there's an outbreak of violence and a lot of publicity and so forth to believe that that the situation is worsening we i think uh lose historical perspective when i think about the whole problem of violence among youth i'm reminded of some of the books and studies and historical reports that have been done on youth violence in in earlier periods of our history and i must say that uh having read those so much of much of what we described today as a as a drastic outbreak of youth violence looks pretty uh boy scoutish by comparison [Music] this is the heart of the slum district of new york city in the middle of the 19th century known as five points in just one tenement formerly a brewery there was a murder a night for 15 years a common brawl often ended in death and the death made little difference the amusements were appropriate for the [Music] time most of the criminals began their careers early and by the time they were 21 usually had at least one murder to their credit plus countless robberies for helpless citizens necessity became the mother of invention as the streets of the city became less and less safe the rivers were also dangerous fifty gangs of pirates terrorized the waterfront their notorious leaders were 20 years old or less police were hard-pressed to control a criminal element that numbered one-tenth of the population [Applause] and in 1863 the gangs of the city united in the criminal revolt known as the draft riots what began as a protest against the conscription act soon became an insurrection against established order and for several days some 60 000 criminals overwhelmed the police and looted the city burning and murdering as they went three quarters of the mob were boys under 20. their victims were treated savagely mutilated tortured and then killed during the course of the riots 18 negroes were lynched and 70 others were reported missing [Applause] the rioters were finally defeated when 10 000 army troops reinforced the police in four days fighting there were as many casualties as in the battle of bull run so my point is that it's it's very difficult uh on a historical basis to know whether real changes in behavior are taking place as as distinct from our just having lost a little perspective on history or uh because of possible changes in the efficiency of police practices and so on it's just a very difficult question to answer the fact of the matter is that in every era of our history the poor have always committed the highest rates of crime for for a number of reasons now the urban poor are the negro the negro have come has come from the uh rural areas he's migrated into big cities both in the south and in the north and he is now one of the major poverty stricken elements in the contemporary urban world but if you take a city like new york before the negro it was the italian who constituted the largest single segment of the poor in this city before the italian the east european jew before him the irish now in each if you if you look historically at the rates of crime you invariably find that the highest rates of crime are in those groups at any given time who are the poorest the fbi statistics for 1963 show newark new jersey as having the highest rate of robberies and aggravated assault of any major city in the united states newark police director dominic a spina this is true since 1960 when we started our new system of reporting nerc has been first or approximately first in these two specific categories of aggravated assault and robberies the migration of negroes into newark and the exodus of whites has been so great that 50 of the population is now non-white there are jobs available but mostly for people with skills in modern america the negro confronts a world very different than the world confronted by any group of poor people in our history bar none if you just take for example the problem of education and employment it was not so many years ago that a boy let's say a boy of a southern italian or sicilian family could in in a city like new york after completing seven or eight grades could drop out of school find a job in a vast uh labor market calling for a great deal of unskilled semi-skilled labor uh could get into an apprenticeship program could learn what he needed to know to to perform a job competently on the job he could learn on the job and he could move up the negro today confronts a very different situation people commonly say that the negro is not interested in education which is why he drops out of school and so on well i think probably the reverse is true my guess would be that the negro is more interested in education than most immigrant groups in our history most other large urban poor groups the problem is that eighth grade is no longer good enough a youngster today even with a heart even with a high school education is in some difficulty in the labor force but my point is that the negro is is coming of age in in in the urban world at a time when he has got to have a much greater emphasis on on education that has been required of any other group in our history he's also confronted by a shrinking labor market uh due to the inroads of automation and other forms of technology so that the job market is shrinking and and the the the requirements for a dedication an emphasis on education are far greater than anyone else so the recent explosion of the civil rights movement forms a background for the fear felt by white americans while the white may be willing to acknowledge the legitimate aspirations of the negro the signs of major change create anxieties the anxieties of the white population erupt into fear and anger when peaceful demonstrations are triggered into mob violence by activists and hoodlums who wish to use the civil rights demonstrations as excuses for looting and tillage to many americans peaceful civil rights demonstrations are confused with mob violence result is a sense of threat i mean if you're getting freedom take it and hold it dearly but if you're gonna take it and abuse your freedom by trying to intimidate other people taking away their freedom that's not freedom i mean you're being as bad as they are i mean there isn't a question of just uh going out and killing people and going out and standing and mugging people that's not freedom you see the leaders of the negro race should emphasize on this and try instead of making excuses when these people do something that is wrong the statistics of major increases in crimes of violence may be questioned by experts but in the highly charged atmosphere of changing relations between the races a negro suspect reinforces the idea held by many whites of widespread violence and personal threat there are no national statistics that give information about the race of a victim and an offender however a number of studies have been done in different cities most of them have dealt with homicide and rape in a five-year study of homicides in philadelphia out of 550 cases where the relationships were known 516 were of the same race and 34 were of a different race in a study of homicides in cincinnati over a 20-year period where the relationships were known 94 of the cases were of the same race a study of forcible rape in philadelphia revealed that of 646 known relationships 602 were of the same race and 44 were of a different race of the 44 a white male was involved in 23 cases and a negro male in 21. a random analysis of aggravated assault in st louis showed that of 238 incidents 228 involved persons of the same race while 10 were of different races since money is the primary motive in robbery the high percentage of negroes robbing whites is not surprising but in crimes of violence in general the greatest victim of the negro by far is the negro in this examination of crime in the united states we have not meant to minimize the violence that surrounds us as members of a civilized society we have a right to live in homes and walk with streets and parks without feeling that our lives are threatened our purpose has been to achieve perspective for without this it's easy to be dominated by fear and to grasp at the oversimplified solutions that deal only with the symptoms of social disorder and not with the disease itself [Music] you