Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham’s 1908 Report on Jews and Crime in NY City

In September 1908, New York’s Police Commissioner Theodore A. Bingham charged the Jews, especially those coming from Russia, with having the largest percentage of criminals in the city, well above all other minorities. The indictment, which appeared in the North American Review entitled ‘Foreign Criminals in New York,’ declared:

The crimes committed by the Russian Hebrews are generally those against property….Among the most expert of all the street thieves are Hebrew boys under sixteen who are being brought up to lives of crime….Forty per cent of the boys at the House of Refuge and twenty per cent of those arraigned in the Children’s Court, are of that race.”

Read the full report here.