Submitted by Darren Smith, Guest Blogger
According to CBS New York, New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg desires to reduce crime among the more than half million residents of the city’s housing districts. He is quoted as saying
“Five percent of our population lives in NYCHA housing, 20 percent of the crime is in NYCHA housing – numbers like that. And we’ve just got to find some way to keep bringing crime down there. And we have a whole group of police officers assigned to NYCHA housing,” Bloomberg said. “The people that live there, most of them, want more police protection. They want more people. If you have strangers walking in the halls of your apartment building, don’t you want somebody to stop and say, ‘Who are you, why are you here?’”
According to this proposal, keeping crime down would be successfully addressed by requiring all residents to submit to fingerprinting as a condition of residency. Supposedly, the fingerprint or other biometric data would be used for biometric access devices such as live fingerprint scanning devices mated with door locks. Yet, the centuries old method of using a key seems to work almost as well and so could perhaps an electronic RFID or magnetic stripe card device such as those used in many hotels. Is security the real goal or is it more nuanced?
Approximately 620,000 persons reside in NYC Housing Authority properties. One has to wonder about practicality in fingerprinting this many individuals, especially if a large portion of these residents are young children where fingerprinting is difficult. One could estimate if somehow this was manageable at even three minutes per set it would require. At 248 office days per year and an 8 hour workday it would take over 15 worker years to fingerprint the existing residents, assuming there was no turnover or births or additions or subtractions.
But what will be more startling to many would be the implication to civil liberties and perhaps the insult in the minds of a large percentage of the tenants this would foster. The proffered intent would be that by fingerprinting each of the tenants and merging that with the security system theoretically only those who have prints were on file would be allowed access into the building. But somehow Mayor Bloomberg believes having a fingerprint on file would allow someone in authority or a tenant to be able to see a person who does or does reside there and is walking down the halls, scan their fingerprints using their eyeballs, and then be able to verify that this person is a resident.
But if such a system is implemented, what is to be done with guests of tenants or for those wishing to contact the residents for any lawful purpose? And realistically how easy would it be to defeat this scheme? One nefarious resident simply opens the door and a phalanx of crooks marches in.
Practicalities aside, is it reasonable for those who through economic need reside in government housing blocks must submit to fingerprinting as is the case with those accused of crimes who are booked into jail while those who are of better means who rent or purchase their own residences not required?
But we should also ask, what the true purpose of this is, if there is one. Is it really to screen people or manage who enter the building? Fingerprinting the entire population of NYC is not going to reduce crime by any significant amount. It does have a purpose in identification only. Fingerprints only show who a person is and that they were present at a location to leave a latent print on an object. If one or both of these elements is absent a fingerprint is useless. Yet, the identification potential has the ability to detect who is actually applying to be a resident; that is if their fingerprints are on file. The problem comes in the use of this data.
Some states prohibit children under a certain age from being fingerprinted for a criminal arrest and / or conviction. Would this proposed rule by a means of bypassing this? Some security cleared employment applicants are required to submit a finger print card, such as those in positions of responsibility, investment managers, government agents and the likes. These cards are then compared with a national database to determine identification and if these prints are matched to those latent prints that were taken from crime scenes. Haphazard data entry by negligent employees can lead to incidences where one set of prints might be mismatched to another person, resulting years later possibly in the wrong person being implicated for a crime due a latent print matching the wrong person mistakenly entered into the database. The location for these print cards are also identified, so those who have submitted fingerprints (if these prints are to be merged into the federal databases) by reason of being public housing applicants when a comparison is made for them later in life it can show that the purpose of this person’s fingerprinting was that they had applied for public housing. Would this lead to a discriminatory treatment of the person, or at least an unfavorable view by some people who might hold a prejudice? And do people have a right to simple be not included in a government database when they have not committed any crime and elected not to apply for a security clearance?
But what kind of society requires it’s most financially vulnerable to submit to the same fingerprinting as those booked into jail as a condition to reside in public housing? And, what if the potential resident elects to refuse to submit to these procedures? Do the children of a single parent have to rely on the charity of others, or be homeless because a parent chooses, for whatever reason they have, to not be printed? Are we also to accept that economically disadvantaged people are criminals by nature and therefore are subjected to a different set of rules for different strata of citizens?
Source CBS New York
@tonyc: You said, “You, and the sociopaths and bigots and morons that think like you, are essentially the cause of crime.”
No. The criminals are the main cause of crime. Poverty and a lousy family life make it far worse and far more likely. You have already identified some people as “sociopaths.” Goodness, is it poverty which makes a Wall Street bond daddy screw the heck out of his customers? Or is it greed and a predatory personality? Do you think those traits are restricted to rich white folks?
For heavens sake, use your frigging head for something besides knocking on doors. There has been crime in every society that has ever existed, and every society has had to have rules and punishments because some people just plain won’t behave themselves.
But, test your ignorant CONCLUSIONS! Go to your local public housing project on a Friday and Saturday night and tell the boyz there how empathetic you are! Bring them some Skittles and Tea. Tell me how that works out for you.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“Go to your local public housing project on a Friday and Saturday night and tell the boyz there how empathetic you are! Bring them some Skittles and Tea. Tell me how that works out for you”
You have used pretty close to that line before so you must think it is informative and compelling.
I lived for more than a decade in DC’s tragically afflicted Shaw neighborhood only blocks from what I later learned was the real Talley’s corner.
Once I walked by the scene of a drive by shooting with blood and bodies still in the street. There were many months where, so far as I knew, I was the only white resident for many, many blocks. Over all, in all that time I was treated with more courtesy and genuine interest than in the other bedroom neighborhoods of Maryland and Northern Virginia where I lived before and after.
One never knows where crime will occur – just ask the elites barricaded in their gated neighborhoods of northern Virginia.
But the worst I ever encountered was an adolescent male who taunted from his front porch ‘yo in the hood now’. Little did he realize.
The hypotheticals you cite may convince you but they strike a false note to me – a virgin writing pornography comes to mind.
Squeeky,
You bigoted twit. I’ve been to housing projects on both Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights alone, in fact some of the most notorious ones in NYC.
I’m still here and I’ve never been attacked. Squeeky your fears are just a mixture of your racism convoluted with repressed sexual fantasy’s of being violated by Black men which I presume is your chief masturbatory fantasy.
Just like drug testing for welfare, this is just another band-aid for a problem that needs surgery. Instead of violating people’s fourth amendment rights, how about getting rid of the public housing and welfare and instead let private charities take over?
Tony C: Spot on. Why else would someone choose the nom de plume of a failed presidential assassin and member of the Charles Manson family?
What Mike S. and Tony said.
Squeeker: As usual, you only agree to dilute your agreement into actual disagreement, and then reassert your stereotypes. 98% of people born are naturally inclined to empathy, caring, and charity. Just because you aren’t one of them, do not make the mistake of thinking everybody else is a sociopath like you.
People drop out of school, commit crimes, get addicted to drugs and deal drugs almost entirely out of desperation and an attempt to escape what seems an inevitable lifetime of second-class citizenship, deprivation, a struggle to survive and not mattering at all. Just as you treat them. When you treat somebody that way, they rebel. If following the rules leaves them phucked for life, expect humans of any color or religion to stop following the rules, because their life is already ruined, once their rationality asserts itself in the teens and that becomes internalized, they will conclude they might as well bet their life on any slim chance of escape they can find: Including becoming a brutal criminal.
You, and the sociopaths and bigots and morons that think like you, are essentially the cause of crime.
Off Topic:
Ray Kelly On Stop And Frisk: ‘No Question’ Violent Crime Will Rise If Program Is Stopped
By Amanda Terkel
Posted: 08/18/2013
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/18/ray-kelly-stop-and-frisk_n_3776035.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly vigorously defended the city’s stop-and-frisk policies on Sunday, predicting trouble if they are stopped.
“No question about it, violent crime will go up,” Kelly responded when asked by NBC “Meet the Press” host David Gregory whether “people will die” if stop and frisk is abandoned.
“This is something that’s integral to policing. This happens throughout America in any police jurisdiction. You have to do it,” he added. “Officers have to have the right of inquiry if they see some suspicious behavior. So I can assure you, this is not just a New York City issue, it’s an issue throughout America. And this case has to be appealed, in my judgment, because it will be taken as a template and have significant impact in policing throughout America.”
“.“No question about it, violent crime will go up,” Kelly responded ”
Murder and violent crime rates have been declining in NYC since 1990 when there were 2045 murders. By 2000 the number of annual murders had declined to fewer than 700.
The decline in the rate of murders and violent crimes in NYC trended down with murders and violent crimes in nine other major metropolitan areas and over the nation as a whole. That trend which began in 1990 for NYC and in the early 1990’s for other areas continues to this day.
The decline in crime in NYC correlates far better with the decline in those other nine metro areas than it does with the number of stops from the ‘stop and frisk’ policy.
There is no indication that crime rates in nine other metro area or the US as a whole are about to begin increasing. No evidence at all, none, none what so ever.
To agree with Commissioner Kelly you have to believe that after 20 years of trending with nine major metro areas and the US as a whole, NYC will now go against trend and start increasing.
There is no evidence to suggest that crime rates in NYC are about to break trend and move differently from the other nine major metro areas or the US. No evidence at all, none what so ever.
Commissioner Kelly’s faith in ‘stop and frisk’ reflects the triumph of hope and raw ambition over the cruel reality of data.
What Mike A. said. The next thing Mayor Big Pockets will be requesting is a debtors prison because if they are poor they must not be allowed to partake in the American dream. If Mayor Bloomberg was walking in one of these buildings without his finger prints being on record, should the residents be afraid of him?? The answer is Yes.
Tony C.,
As Mike S said….in so many words… Spot on…
Bruce-
“Well at least N.Y. isn’t leading the nation in murder per capita like Chicago.”
Chicago and NYC are at or near the top in total murders. However, neither is even in the top ten per capita.
“NYC has five Boroughs (counties really). Of the top five counties in the US, three of the five are NYC Boroughs. Number one is Manhattan, Number three is Brooklyn and number four is Queens.”
What I neglected to mention was that I was talking in terms of housing and rental costs.
“Crime is primarily caused by existential desperation. If 20% of the crime is in NYCHA housing, that is probably because it is a hot spot for desperation and therefore a source of crime. Reducing crime there will only cause the desperate to look for easier victims elsewhere, it will not reduce the overall crime rate.”
Tony C.,
You’re on the money. Let’s look briefly back at the history of the NYCHA and the man who is most responsible Robert Moses:
“NYCHA was created in 1934. At the end of 1935, NYCHA dedicated its first development, called First Houses, located on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The Authority boomed in partnership with Robert Moses after World War II as a part of Moses’ plan to clear old tenements and remake New York as a modern city. Moses indicated later in life that he was disappointed at how the public housing system fell into decline and disrepair. Originally intended for working families, the projects increasingly became occupied by low-income families, many of whom had no working adult.[citation needed] The majority of NYCHA developments were built between 1945 and 1965. Unlike most cities, New York depended heavily on city and state funds to build its housing, rather than just the federal government. Most of the postwar developments had over 1000 apartment units each, and most were built in the modernist, tower-in-the-park style popular at the time.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Housing_Authority
Moses was a wealthy NYC aristocrat who publicly had disdain for poor people, particularly people of color and ethnic minorities. This Wiki article has a few problems, but can give you an idea of the man, his power and his disdain for the “lower classes” particularly Blacks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses. The definitive biography of Moses is “The Power Broker” by historian Robert Caro. It is a long, detailed book (1,000+ pages) that really gave me my first understanding of NY politics and politics in general. Moses interest in the projects was more of the “urban renewal” variety which really meant reclaiming potentially strategic land for the use of the rich. He developed Jones Beach on Long Island (one of the world’s longest and most beautiful beaches) and then ensured that there was no public transportation available to get there, thus eliminating the poor. Some of the most substantial overpass bridges in the world are located on the Southern State, Meadowbrook and Wantagh State Parkways which are the access to the Jones beach complex. The bridges were purposely built with low clearances so that buses could never use these parkways to access Jones Beach. No rail service to Jones Beach is available either. This was the Moses mentality.
Back to the projects, over which after WWII, Moses had great power. As the quote says almost all of these project building were 1,000 apartment towers running about 15 stories. They were built in areas of the City that were considered less desirable and in many instances they were not built close to convenient public transportation. Their design is of a depressingly utilitarian brick and except for that they lack color or style. Experiments have shown that when humans are overcrowded, that overcrowding in and of itself leads to the desperation and despair Tony alludes to. It also must be understood that this housing while ostensibly to benefit those with lower incomes also served to segregate them from the wealthier classes and even the middle class.
NYC has five Boroughs (counties really). Of the top five counties in the US, three of the five are NYC Boroughs. Number one is Manhattan, Number three is Brooklyn and number four is Queens. While under Giuliani and Bloomberg Manhattan receives the most attention the urbanization of these two other Boroughs has forced those of lesser income to relocate. For instance I couldn’t afford to live in NYC (my beloved home town) and had to move to Florida where real estate/rentals was cheaper. By definition people who live in NYCHA projects can’t afford to move anywhere and thus are trapped into housing which by its nature breeds despair. The reality too, is that with the budget constraints imposed by various tax advantages to the wealthy in NY, Mayors like Bloomberg and Giuliani failed to maintain NYCHA housing properly. I have seen so many instances where the one elevator in a fifteen floor hi-rise project has remained broken for months on end.
It is quite easy these days, having had a senile actor as President beginning the cycle, to blame the impoverished for being in that State. Then too for our Country’s shrinking middle class the idea of slipping back into the great unwashed masses is terrifying and so they find themselves comforted by the idea that those suffering are the cause of their own misery. The same mass of people so frightened of their own potential to fall into impoverishment, become willing to believe that the problems like crime, which are direct results of poverty, can be solved by further oppression by government. People like Bloomberg, who is purported to fly to his home in Bermuda most weekends, offering draconian solutions only affecting those alienated from society seem like heroes battling the “barbarians.” That this mild mannered billionaire is far more barbaric than his appearance, seems hard to believe, yet it is sadly true. He is a truly disgusting man, who in current NY circles, is only a hairsbreadth away from being Donald Trump politically.
.
@tonyc: You said:
Overall, I agree with you, and decent jobs would solve a whole lot of the problems. Which is why we probably need import tariffs and NAFTA in the trash can. But there are a lot of people you couldn’t give a decent paying job to. And its not just a lot poor black dudes, its middle class white boys, too. In their late teens and 20’s.
As long as they have enough money to buy hamburgers or pizza, and enough for beer/pot/Xanax/oxy/meth/whatever, then they are happy. $3.30/hour is enough for them to get by on, particularly if they can sponge off their family or some dumb chick to keep the electricity bill paid so the X-box will work. They are drug dealers to save money. They buy 100 pills, and sell 80 of them at a profit to pay for the 100+, and use the other 20 pills for themselves. They pilfer and steal whenever possible for extra cash. They might get a job from time to time when they need extra cash to buy new tires, or when they move to some new enablers house, under the pretense they are going to help pay the bills. The jobs seem to last long enough to qualify for unemployment. If you have teenage kids, you have probably had some of these people in your home without really knowing what they are. And you have probably come up wondering whatever happened to my ______, because you could just swear you put it back in the drawer when you were through with it???
I would GUESS that public housing projects of full of these kind of losers, who make life miserable for everybody around them. It will take more than jobs to fix that.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Why not just have residents of public housing wear badges on their clothing so they can be easily identified wherever they go in the city? Hitler had some good ideas, you know, Mayor Bloomberg!
Tony C.: That’s a synopsis of the Martin/Zimmerman shooting
Another example of how the United States is becoming more and more a Minority Report-like nation? Hitler and his Reich members would be in awe of Mayor Bloomberg and his idea on fingerprinting the residents of New York’s housing projects. Indeed, if only such technology would have allowed Hitler, Himmler, Heydrich, Goebbels, Goring, Bormann, et al, to catalogue and monitor Europe’s Jews. Imagine the efficiency Hitler and his thugs would have been able to exercise in carrying out their monstrous deeds. Implicit in Bloomberg’s idea: the poor are prone to criminal deviancy, therefore they should be monitored. Not the assholes on Wall Street who helped steer this country into a ditch in 2008.
Jason: Am I the only one who, when they read this line, yelled out loud, “No! No, I don’t want someone stopping people for the crime of being a stranger!”
I agree. My reaction on reading that line was to flip it: I am a stranger to almost everyone I meet, and the act of walking or standing in a public hallway or on a public street in in a public place of business is not a crime, and I do not want to be challenged thirty times a day with aggressive suspicion demanding I prove who I am and what I am doing (or presumably being forced to leave). It is a free country. I am entitled to some privacy in my thinking and motivations.
Besides, if I am a stranger to them, they are a stranger to me: Why should I answer them until they answer me, who are they and what are they doing questioning me?
It is a free country, strangers have the right to go about their business in privacy, and until they commit a crime we just have to accept that some things are none of our business. If we think that increases our risk of crime, that is the price of freedom, and its a bargain because the price of totalitarianism would be much higher.
“Jason: Am I the only one who, when they read this line, yelled out loud, “No! No, I don’t want someone stopping people for the crime of being a stranger!”
I agree. My reaction on reading that line was to flip it: I am a stranger to almost everyone I meet, and the act of walking or standing in a public hallway or on a public street in in a public place of business is not a crime, and I do not want to be challenged thirty times a day with aggressive suspicion demanding I prove who I am and what I am doing”
Jason and Tony C.,
It is chillingly ironic that both in NAZI Germany and in the USSR people were exhorted to spy on their neighbors actions with fear as the basis for the need to spy. Spying on ones neighbor and reporting their behavior was considered good citizenship. Since the Patriot Act we hear similar exhortations, such as look at “suspicious” people all around you and report them if afraid. Is this the lives we really want to lead and is this the America we really want? A land driven by fear and suspicion? Apparently this is the mindset of Mike Bloomberg, whose suspicions run rampant for those not of his social class.
Vestal Virgin: “Why wouldn’t I have been entitled to the government’s public safety efforts just because I didn’t have a lot of money?” That’s a good question. As Darren showed, fingerprinting everyone in the housing complex will not lower crime. It will make some private contractor a lot of money and give the govt. information it is not entitled to have.
So why not provide security and safety to people who are poor. People should not have to live with crime. That is why most of our political and industry elites should be in prison. After all they have committed dozens of serious crimes with no consequences coming to them at all. We should not tolerate that as a society nor should we tolerate crime directed specifically against people who are poor.
Bruce, since you seem to think being poor is criminal, do you also wish to hold account high level, extraordinarily wealthy and powerful individuals who commit war and financial crimes? Or, are they not to be inconvenienced by adhering to the rule of law?
I’m in agreement with Mike A…. What more need be said…
Gee we can’t inconvenience those poor people on state housing assistance.
Well at least N.Y. isn’t leading the nation in murder per capita like Chicago.