Bloomberg: Public Housing Residents Should Be Fingerprinted to Reduce Crime
Mayor Bloomberg suggested Friday that New York City public housing residents should be fingerprinted as a way to fight crime in the system’s 334 buildings.
Bloomberg, speaking on his weekly radio show, said NYCHA residents make up 5 percent of the city’s population while 20 percent of New York City crimes are committed in public housing.
“The people that live there, most of them, want more police protection… 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’re you here?’”
“What we really should have is fingerprinting to get in,” he went on. “And of course … there’s an allegation that some of these apartments aren’t occupied by the people who originally have the lease.”