Crime Prevention

“My object in these pages has been simply to tell of some of the things we learned and did in New York during the term that I had the honor of serving the city as Police Commissioner. We learned that most crimes are not hindered by the conventional methods of police protection, and we tried, while cleaving to conventional methods and steadily improving them, to devise new methods which should tend to complement the older ones. Further, we became convinced that from every point of view, it was the duty of police not only to keep criminals from committing crime, but to keep people from becoming criminals. And the Deputy Commissioners and I believed that with the loyal and interested cooperation of the splendid personnel of the New York Force, we had made a beginning which can be developed so that there will be as much improvement in preventing crime and criminals in our midst as there has been in preventing fire in factories, or disease in armies. Lawbreakers we shall probably have with us for a goodly number of generations yet, but we can persistently reduce their ranks by studying causes and taking preventive action. Further, we can steadily make it more and more hard for them to operate by improving our protective measures, and gradually educating the public to take the simple precautions that will help so much, yet are so easy to practice.”— Author’s Introduction