Cecil ’14 i

Community Structure and Crime in the Five Points

Andrew Cecil ‘14

Writing 1010.23

Professor Lehman

December 11, 2010

Outline: Community Structure and Crime in the Five Points

Cecil ’14 ii

Thesis: The high rate of crime in the Five Points is a result from the unstable environment that the people of the Five Points lived in and are evident in their daily lives and the crime that surrounds them.

I. What were common crimes that occurred in the Five Points?

II. What influence did the unstable environment have on crime and people’s daily lives?

III. How were the crimes and their causes depicted in the media?

IV. What were the common reactions to crimes in the Five Points?

V. How are the crime rates, their causes, their depictions in the media, and the reactions to them by the people similar to criminal environments today?

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Community Structure and Crime in the Five Points

Crime has been evident throughout the world since the beginning of

civilizations. Many researchers and criminologists have different theories on

the main cause of crime. Yet, it is in fact the environment that people live in

that makes them criminals, as opposed to criminals turning an environment

into a criminal environment. People are more likely to resort to crime in an

environment that promotes it; a place with few job opportunities, low

income, and poor housing is a breeding ground for crime. There is no better

example of such a dynamic at work as the infamous “Five Points”

neighborhood of early 19th century New York City.

Five Points existed in modern day Chinatown in downtown Manhattan.

The name derived from the five streets that crossed an intersection called

Paradise Square: Mulberry Street, Anthony, Cross, Orange, and Little Water.

Mulberry Street still exists, but Little Water is no longer there; Anthony is

now Worth Street, Cross is now Mott Street, and Orange Street is now called

Baxter. Today many people are able to step on the same stone paved streets

that those who lived in the Five Points stepped on, “Walk around New York

City neighborhoods long enough, and you are liable to wander, unaware,

through some sites of notable social or cultural history that time has

transformed, obscuring a vivid and rambunctious past” (Anbinder 4).

Anbinder suggests that even though the names have changed, the history of

the most infamous neighborhood still lies beneath it along with many of its

inhabitants that had lived there during that time.

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Five Points was not a planned neighborhood; it began as a pond called

“The Collect,” and over time the Common Council filled the pond with dirt

(Anbinder 15). The structures later built atop the site would literally sink into

the ground when it rained heavily. In addition to the Collect Pond being filled,

there were slaughterhouses that were within miles of the pond that

remained after the pond being filled. This caused the smell from the

carcasses in the slaughterhouses filled the muddy land that was the Collect

Pond (Anbinder 14). The combination of the pungent smells from the

slaughterhouses and the muddy land that replaced the Collect Pond made

the area an undesirable place, a place where only those who had no money

and no place to go inhabited.

As the affluent population that could afford good land expanded within

northern Manhattan, the poor could only afford to live atop the Collect in the

south (Anbinder 14). They built atop the filled-in pond, surrounded by the

smell of decaying carcasses of butchered meat from the neighboring

slaughterhouses. More poor people moved to the Collect after the war of

1812, and buildings sprouted to support them. Landowners built many two

and a half story buildings and rented them out to the poor (Anbinder 15). The

old collect slowly evolved into the Five Points, and its future inhabitants

would turn to crime to survive.

In the early 1820s, immigrants flooded the ports of New York looking

for a place to stay, but the only place they could afford to stay was in the

Five Points. In 1825, 25% of the population in the Five Points were

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immigrants (Anbinder 16). However, the immigrants did not set foot on

American soil without great hostility from anti-immigrant, native born

Americans who rejected the flood of immigrants, especially the Irish and

their Catholic beliefs that they carried with them. For example, the native

born Americans resented the fact that irish immigrants were taking away job

opportunities from native born Americans. Immigrants who lived in the Five

Points typically allied with other immigrants from their same countries

because they spoke the same language, in some cases looked similar, and

occupied the same level of the social ladder. These immigrant alliances gave

rise to New York’s first gangs – groups of immigrants who stuck together out

of necessity and fought for jobs and respect. Since the native born

Americans shared the same fear of foreign influence, they too banned

together to form gangs of native born Americans. In return, there were many

disputes, fights, and battles that took place between the immigrant gangs

and the native gangs for control over the Five Points.

Modern criminology can shed additional light on how the Five Points

naturally aroused crime and gang activity. Criminologists Robert J. Sampson

and W. Byron Groves argue that an unstable environment encourages gang

activity, observing, “Socially disorganized communities with extensive street-

corner peer groups are also expected to have higher rates of adult crime,

especially among younger adults who still have ties to youth gangs” (6). The

poor lifestyle made the Five Points a hotbed for gang activity, but it was the

diversity of the citizens of the Five Points that spurred conflict. And as

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Groves and Sampson stated, street corner groups in an unstable social

environment leads to a large formation of gangs (6).

The gangs grew larger as the population increased. Native gangs such

as the “Bowery Boys, Broadway Boys, the Slaughterhousers, the American

Guard, and the Atlantic Guard were located on the eastern half of the Five

Points. To the western side of the Five Points were the Irish immigrant gangs

such as the Dead Rabbits, the Shirt Tales, the Plug-Uglies, the Forty Thieves,

Chichesters, and O’Connell Guard” (“Uncovering the Real Gangs of New

York”). Occasionally native gangs would fight other native gangs and

occasionally Irish gangs would fight each other, but most of the time fights

took place between native gangs and Irish gangs. The hatred by the native

gangs for the Irish immigrants was primarily due to the fact that the

immigrants would take jobs that nobody else wanted for almost no pay.

However, the fact that they were still taking jobs angered the native born

Americans (such a situation is comparable to that of today’s situation of

Mexican and other latin American immigrants taking unwanted jobs for little

pay from natural born citizens.) However, in the Five Points the dispute

between the native born Americans and the Irish immigrants resulted in

many assaults and brawls between Irish immigrants and native gangs.

With little job opportunity, crim was the easiest and most common way

of obtaining income. Petty theft such as pick pocketing occurred constantly.

People would often follow behind a person and snatch their wallet or watch;

children made excellent pickpockets because they were small and fast

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enough to run away afterwards. People often stole from eachother’s homes

when they were away by breaking the window and taking whatever they

could find. This would often take place when a house was on fire. People

would run into the flaming house and steal items from the burning home

before the fire department showed up, or better yet, rob a house down the

street. Theft was common because it was the easiest way to make a profit; it

was easier to take what wasn’t yours than to earn money through hard work

(Anbinder 38). Robbery was also apparent in the Five Points. In 1837 two

African American men from the Five Points were arrested for breaking into

an Up-town home and murdering its owner after stealing 10 dollars

(Anbinder 222).

The constant substance abuse that took place in the Five Points also

lead to crime and was common among men. It was not uncommon to see

people passed out on the street the following morning from intoxication.

Drunkenness was so common that it was always overlooked by police

officials (Anbinder 226).

Substance abuse led to violence against women. Women and girls

(especially prostitutes) were often beaten by men. This was because men

felt that they were superior to women and that men could take what they

wanted from women, be it sex or money. Domestic violence is also a

common problem in households where a husband feels powerless,

frustrated, and unemployed (Anbinder 234). Also, prostitution was rampant

in the Five Points. At the time, every house was a brothel littered with

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prostitutes that worked inside. Prostitution was so common in the Five Points

that girls growing up in the Five Points would begin working as prostitutes at

the age of fourteen. In some cases, parents would even force their own

daughters into prostitution to earn money for their family (Anbinder 207).

The rampant violence towards women and prostitution led to many

cases of rape. However, rape was not as common as common assault

against women, but it did take place. Most cases of rape happened between

an Irish women and a non-Irish man, suggesting the racism involved in the

criminal act (Anbinder 123). The few cases of rape that were reported were

investigated, but most cases of rape were never reported and failed to be

subject to further investigation. Rape was a rare occurrence in the Five

Points but left many women pregnant without any means of contraception.

As a result, child abandonment happened frequently. Parents in the Five

Points often felt that they could not take care of themselves, let alone a

child, and so, many dropped the children off at the local church or police

station and fled. The rate of child abandonment was so high in the Five

Points that 30 percent of the children were orphans (Anbinder 224).

Murders were also common in the Five Points but they were rarely

reported; the police wrote off most of them as “the poor weeding out the

poor” (Anbinder 225). Many police officers did not care if a crime occurred as

long as it was not committed against the rich. They were merely present to

protect the rich from the poor. Although murder was common, it rarely went

without recognition. Following any public murder was a story in the

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newspapers about what had happened, which further fueled the reputation

of the Five Points as a criminal environment. Most murders, like violence

against women, were agitated because of the common substance abuse that

took place.

The crimes that existed in the Five Points all aid the concept of what is

known as “rational choice perspective.” Criminologists and researchers

explain the theory as of the rational processes involved. It was assumed, in

other words:

that crime is purposive behavior designed to meet the offender's

commonplace needs for such things as money, status, sex, and

excitement, and that meeting these needs involves the making of

(sometimes quite rudimentary) decisions and choices, constrained as

these are by limits of time and ability and the availability of relevant

information. (Clarke 9)

The rational choice perspective gives reason to the numerous types of

crimes throughout the early 19th century in the Five Points by suggesting

that it was out of personal necessity to obtain common things. With the lack

of job opportunities and poor living conditions, people resorted to crime as a

way of obtaining their personal needs and only met limited resistance by

police authorities.

In such a crime ridden neighborhood as the infamous Five Points, it is

surprising that the police force did as little as they did to combat crime in the

Five Points. In fact, the Five Points was so infamous for its crime rate that the

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constables at its early beginning instituted the country’s first police

department (Anbinder 45). However, the police department did very little to

stop the crime in the Five Points. The police were present in the Five Points,

yet they were only there to keep the poor people from the Five Points from

assaulting the rich from up-town who might have been visiting the Five

Points.

There were also fire departments that worked in the Five Points. Yet,

the fire departments of the early 19th century were very different compared

to today. The fire departments were entirely voluntarily because of the utter

destruction that fires could cause to the buildings in New York because they

are all connected together. In fact, there was more than one fire department

that fought fires in the Five Points. The rivalry between them began when

insurance companies rewarded the department who arrived on the scene

first, often ending in brawls between two fire departments about who arrived

first while the fire continued to burn the building and its contents

(“Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York”).

There was a lot of crime in the Five Points, but the people who lived

there also knew how to have a good time and enjoy themselves. During the

day people would work, or clean, or cook, but at night was when the people

of the Five Points enjoyed themselves. Saloons were the most visited, but

there were also bars, plays, games, fairs, and dances. Most of such occasions

would often end in a brawl, yet people still enjoyed themselves (Anbinder

176). However, with the low income inhabitants that lived in the points,

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many people traded to attend events or to purchase things such as alcohol.

It was said that there was once a women named “Hellcat Maggie” who would

cut off people’s ears and fingers and trade them for pints of beer

(“Uncovering the Real Gangs of New York”). Many gangs ran saloons or bars

and used it as a source of income as well as a headquarters for criminal

activity. Another common event that the people in the Five Points would

attend were boxing matches. Often boxing matches would be held inside of a

building and the fighters would fight with their bare knuckles without gloves,

this caused the fight to last longer and increase the amount of blood during

the fight. It was also a source of gambling, which was also prevalent in the

Five Points neighborhood. Card games were naturally the preferred way to

gamble, yet in places such as the Old Bowery, there was often a dog fighting

ring that took place for spectators to place bets on as well.

The most visited scene in the Five Points was the Chatham Theater

during a play. People would pack into the theater and sit on hard wooden

benches for hours. The plays however were not traditional plays, they were

often tweaked to fit the persona of the average Five Points citizen. For

example, “Portrayals of ‘Jim Crow’ likewise drew big crowds. . . and staged a

life of Custer in which Sitting Bull died at Little Bighorn” (Anbinder 189).

Many people enjoyed seeing such plays because it depicted white native

born Americans as the hero, and the foreign born immigrants or African

Americans as the villain. Whenever a play did not end to the crowds liking,

the crowd would proceed to throw rotten food at the stage and boo the

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performers until they either corrected their depiction, or left the stage. Plays

were often a form of learning in which people who did not know how to read,

would be able to hear the play and understand the play and possible obtain

news about current events. However, due to the location of the play and the

nativity of the crowd, the views perceived were often biased.

Politics were also present in the Five Points. However, the political

groups that inhabited the Five Points were more corrupt than any other

political organization in America. The leader of the “Whig Party”, or “Know-

Nothing Party” lead by William “Boss” Tweed was head of Tammany Hall.

Tweed also was also a collaborator with many native gangs and used them

as muscle to gain power. He was not the mayor, but when he ran for mayor

he used his gang affiliation to intimidate people into voting and getting

voters to shave multiple times and vote more than once with a different

appearance. Tweed had been credited to “perfecting forms of graft and

voting-box abuse mimicked by political bosses for the next century, but

never on so grand a scale” (Ackerman 7). Tweed also had strong ties to

native gangs in the Five Points because Tweed, Tammany Hall, and the

native gangs shared the same fear of foreign influence by Catholic Irish

immigrants upon the citizens of the United States. Tweed and his native

followers saw themselves as “guardians of Protestant, Anglo-Saxon

standards, they regarded the immigrant as a threat to the purity of the Anglo

Saxon stock, its religion, and its values of self reliance and independence”

(Callow 5). “Boss” Tweed used his gang affiliations to also connect with the

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Five Points community even though he was higher on the social ladder. This

allowed Tweed to gain support not only in the political stand of the Five

Points, but also through its social stand.

With the large amount of crime and poverty that flooded the streets of

the Five Points, it seemed as though the worst people of the Five Points

seemed to all be drawn to the worst area of the neighborhood; “The Old

Bowery” (McCabe Jr. 193). The Old Bowery was previously a manufacturing

plant. But by the early 19th century, the company had left The Bowery and

the people of the Five Points had made it their own. It was filthy and crowed.

“It is not over clean, and has an air of sharpness and repulsiveness that at

once attracts attention” (McCabe Jr. 186). There were always people fighting

was a constant source of crime. The Bowery was the headquarters for many

gangs and crimes, and “was well known for its roughs, or ‘Bowery Boys,’ as

they were called, its rowdy firemen, and it’s doubtful women. In short, it was

paradise of the worst element of New York” (McCabe Jr. 187). The Bowery

was where one could find the “Bowery Boys” the most popular native gang in

the Five Points. They were well dressed and admired, as well as feared, by

many. James D. McCabe Jr. explains the Bowery Boys as:

You might see him “strutting along like a king” with his breeches stuck

in his boots, his coat on his arm, his flaming red shirt tied at the collar

with a cravat such as could be seen nowhere else; with crape on his

hat, the hat set deftly on the side of his head, his hair even plastered

down to his skull, and a cigar in his mouth. . . None as ready for a fight

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as he, none so quick to resent the intrusion of a respectable man into

his haunts. (188)

Herbert Ashbury was a well known author and journalist who focused on

“gang member and gamblers, con men and crooks, whores and pimps, and

other miscreants who made up the teeming underworld of 19th century

America” (Schechter 303). Ashbury explained the Bowery in his novel The

Gangs of New York as “a place where miserable humanity boiled up, resulted

in crime, and flooded the streets of the points. The Bowery was where the

worst of the Five Points rested their heads” (305). It was also where many

disputes arose that would later spill out onto the streets, often in the form of

gang violence.

The kind of conditions that people in the Five Points lived in should not

go unnoticed, as it contributed to the infamous lifestyle of the Five Points.

The traditional styles of housing in the Five Points were tenements (Ross 92).

The earliest tenements were made from wood, and as time and technology

advanced, the tenements were made from brick. Yet the poor citizens that

inhabited the Five Points did not have the luxury of brick housing, and

resulted with the old wooden tenements from decades before. The

tenements were nearly three stories tall and had at least one underground

floor. The tenements also did a poor job at keeping out factors such as rain,

snow, wind, and disgusting smell (Anbinder 73). Rain would leak through the

ceiling, wind would gust through the holes in the weak walls, and copious

amounts of snow would cause roofs to collapse. The tenements were often

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over crowded, cramming people into rooms, basements, attics, and cellars.

This overcrowding caused problems such as disease and viruses, and of

course foul odor. The smell of one room in a Five Points tenement was

described as:

If the whitened and cadaverous countenance should be an insufficient

guide, the odor of the person will remove all doubt; a musty smell,

which a damp cellar only can impart, pervades every article of dress,

the woolens more particularly, as well as the hair and skin. (Anbinder

79)

The smell was also accompanied by sickness. With so many people crammed

into such a small area and no money for medicine, anybody who was sick

inevitably infected everyone in the tenement. When the Tribune made a list

of the dirtiest houses in New York, Five Points was at the top of the list

(Anbinder 83). The living conditions in which the citizens in the Five Points

lived in helped form it into the worst neighborhood in the world.

The streets were equally, if not more dirty than the tenements people

lived in. Even in the most active area of the Five Points, Paradise Square was

as filthy as the people who populated it (Anbinder 84). There were always

people selling things, most of the time food and animals. People would use

Paradise Square as a source of marketing in order to sell their items, in most

cases food. If the food was purchased, the remains would be thrown to the

ground instead of a waste disposal bin or a trash can, and the food that was

not purchased was also just thrown to the grown because it would have

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rotten anyway. The animals that people would sell, such as chickens, pigs,

horses, and other livestock would openly leave fecal matter on the street.

The mixture of rotting food and animal excrement made the streets even

worse than the living quarters people lived in.

Dirt and mud were also problems for citizens in the Five Points. When it

would rain, the dirt would turn to mud and cause all the waste that already

lay upon the streets to smell even worse. Another complaint people of the

Five Points had was with dirt. Dirt was said to have gotten everywhere, into

the house, onto clothes, into food, and into the water. The problems with

waste, mud, and dirt forced the city of New York to institute street cleaning.

The job of a street cleaner was often done by low-income Irish men. They

would wear a hat similar to that of a firefighter with the sign “SCD; Street

Cleaning Department” on it and scrub away the mess on the streets with a

broom (Anbinder 84). The problem was that they did not pick up and dispose

of the waste, they merely just pushed it to the side of the curb to be washed

away by the rain. The biggest problem with the way New York dealt with

their street waste happened when the rain would wash away the waste but

not into the gutters, but into the floor level of the tenements, flooding the

floor level with waste.

Most of the people who lived in the Five Points were poor immigrants

who did not speak the language, making it difficult to find a job in America.

This forced immigrants in the Five Points to follow the same occupation they

had before in their native country; “such as laborer, tailor, shoemaker, or

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seamstress” (Anbinder 111). The immigrants made up most of the low

paying jobs, much like today.

The women of the Five Points did not do labor work, but did needle

trades instead and tended to the house (Anbinder 111). Women in the Five

Points had a more difficult time finding time to tend to their husband,

children, their house, and their job. Women’s work included “sewing shirts,

but also as dress, cap, and vest makers as well” (Anbinder 112).

The children who lived in the Five Points had an even more difficult

time during in their youth. None of the children went to school, and most

took whatever jobs they could take. As children grew up, they began to see

the filth and crime that flooded the streets of the Five Points. Since no child

had schooling, or even a steady job, they turned to crime to not only survive,

but to amuse themselves as well. Many children would pick the pockets of

those who walked alongside the street and then use their small size and

agility to run away. Children would also form their own gangs with other

children, idolizing the adult gangs they impersonated. Children would also

work for adult gangs by carrying out certain crimes, such as picking pockets,

suppressing the police, and even assaulting other gang members. The

children of the Five Points grew up in an impoverished life, and as a result

many children grew into the gang members and criminals they idolized

(Anbinder 114).

With multiple types of immigrants with different backgrounds, came

the differences in their jobs and job attitudes. The Irish were seen as the

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most unskilled workers, taking jobs such as “carters, drivers, hostlers,

sailors, waiters, and watchmen” (Anbinder 113). The validity of the belief

that the Irish were mostly unskilled should be questioned because of the vast

discrimination of the Irish by the native born citizens. However, it was clear

that the Irish did not possess the same jobs as other immigrants, and

certainly native born citizens. Yet, when the Irish could not successfully find

work in the Five Points, many moved into the countryside to find work on

farms (Anbinder 121). The types of jobs that many Irish in the Five Points had

did not pay much, and kept them on the bottom of the social ladder for a

long period of time.

With so many different people with so many different backgrounds,

also came different kinds of religion. The religion that was supported by the

native born Americans was almost always Christianity. However, the natives

truly began to fear foreign influence with the immigration of Irish Catholics.

There were also Jews and other divisions of Christianity, yet none was more

disliked than Catholicism. Many Christians did not allow Catholics to pray in

their church and forced them out upon entry. Bnai Jeshurun was founded

polish immigrants and served as the primary synagogue for Jews in the Five

Points (Anbinder 346). The Catholics originally ran mass and other

congregations out of their homes by ordained ministers, but soon Catholics

began to build their first church in the Five Points. The Catholics were mainly

Irish immigrants and were welcoming of other immigrants and other religions

into their ceremonies. The Catholics even allowed African Americans to

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partake in their congregation because they too were being discriminated

against by the native born Americans. The practical issues around the

religious divisions of Christianity also motivated the violence. For example

native born Christians looked down on the Catholic immigrants for their

devotion to the Pope. In one instance, a Christian immigrant went to the

Christian church run by the natives and was beaten up in return. This

resulted in a large battle between predominantly Irish Catholics and native

Christians (Anbinder 378).

The terrible conditions of the Five Points were kept from improvement

by the city of New York and its lack of organization to clean up the streets of

the Five Points (Anbinder 87). The city of New York did not care for the Five

Points and felt that they should only intervene if the troubles of the Five

Points spread uptown to the wealthy citizens that lived there. An example of

the city’s lack of intervention was evident during the race and draft riots that

originated in the Five Points. During the riots, people swarmed the streets

and caused mayhem wherever they went. The city did not send police aid or

military aid until the mob or riot spread to the uptown houses where the rich

resided, at which point the city sent police and military aid to stop the mob.

The lack of involvement by the city caused the Five Points to continue to

spiral downward. Another example of the lack of involvement by the city was

evident in the public hygiene issue that the Five Points had. The Five Points

was dirty and there were no jobs for people to clean them up. The city did

not care about the filth in the points only until the dirt was swept uptown

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with a flood and the city soon after institutionalized jobs in street cleaning to

clean the streets and avoid further problems with waste that would affect the

wealthy townspeople uptown (Anbinder 120).

The lack of organization by the city of New York infers a lot of damage

being caused by over population. For example, people were coming in too

quickly for New York City to build proper buildings to keep them evenly

distributed, as seen through the tenements expressed earlier. It is also

inferred that the overpopulation problem is a part of why the city was

overwhelmed and the citizens of the Five Points were overlooked. Finally the

city was willfully negligent because even if the city wanted to fix the

overpopulation problem they were physically in able to do so because of the

amount of people that came off the boat and squatted in the Five Points.

The city of New York ignored the Five Points, but the newspapers did

not. It was through the newspapers and journalists that made the Five Points

infamous in the early 19th century. Many journalists, writers, and novelists

had heard of the crime and the poverty of the Five Points within New York,

one of America’s largest and most popular cities. Journalists from foreign

countries, such as the London Times (Burrows and Wallace 524), even came

to the Five Points to experience to life of crime and poverty in the Five

Points. Yet the greatest representation of the Five Points in the early 19th

century was in The Sun, The Herald, and the New York Transcript (Burrows

and Wallace 525). It was The Sun, The Herald, and the New York Transcript

that published numerous articles about the Five Points and popularized the

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life of crime and poverty that breathe within it. Every day there were stories

of crime in the Five Points. Originally the stories were on the front page, but

as time passed, stories of crime in the Five Points became accepted and

expected and as a result the stories were pushed farther back in the papers.

Despite the numerous numbers of articles about crimes in the Five

Points, none was more publicized than the murder of Helen Jewett. Jewett

was a well known prostitute in the Five Points who often worked out of the

brother off of Orange Street not far from the Old Bowery (Cohen 84). In 1836,

on April 9th, a frequent customer of Helen Jewett named Richard P. Robinson

met with her for the night. “What begun as a routine evening at a business

establishment in New York had taken a turn into a grisly criminal event that

within the week would be publicized all over the country” (Cohen 7). Jewett

was found by a friend in her room with multiple stab wounds to her chest.

Jewett’s friend said that Robinson was the last to see her, suggesting his

hand in the crime. From that point on it was the most publicized crime thus

far. Every newspaper in New York, and later the world, was writing about the

gratuitousness of the crime and the development of the trial. Each

newspaper had different personal biases about the crime, which in turn

affected the nature of the articles written. For example, few newspapers

sided with the victim Helen Jewett, believing that she was innocent and the

victim of a malicious act and focused on the trail and conviction of Robinson.

On the other hand however, some newspapers believed that Jewett’s

occupation as a prostitute played a factor in her murder and that “she got

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what she deserved,” and focused on the reputation of Jewett as a prostitute

to convey support for the falsely accused Robinson. Weeks of articles and a

lengthy trial later, Robinson was found not guilty of the crime and the

newspapers of the day continued with their biased articles about the

outcome of the trial.

Many criminologists and researchers today look back on the case of

Helen Jewett, and use it to explain how a victim may aid the crime

committed against them. Such an instance is known as “victim precipitation;

the role of the victim in provoking or encouraging criminal behavior” (Siegel

121). With regard to the case of Helen Jewett, it was through her occupation

as a prostitute that aided to her demise because, as a prostitute, she worked

in a dangerous neighborhood and working for precarious characters. Another

concept of victim precipitation was that “crime victims were often intimately

involved in their demise and that as many as 25 percent of all homicides

could be classified as victim-precipitated” (Siegel 122). The stated concept

could also be applied to the case of Helen Jewett because he killer was a

customer whom Jewett had seen intimately numerous times. The case of

Helen Jewett suggests that concepts of social influences on criminality can

still be applied, even the most infamous crimes of the past.

The newspapers of the Five Points and other criminal environments

aided to the application of concepts such as victim precipitation. One such

newspaper that covered the murder of Helen Jewett and many crimes in the

Five Points was James Gordon Bennett’s New York Herald. Bennett’s Herald

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was similar to older newspapers such as The Sun and The New York

Transcript. However, Bennett made his own personal opinions and judgments

about politics, crime, poverty, immigration, and slavery clear in his

newspaper. Bennett favored the “Know Nothing” Party and their pro-slavery,

nativity, and anti-Catholicism that Bennett himself felt (Crouthamel 109).

Bennett often supported slavery in his newspaper and the rejection of

Catholicism, which appealed greatly to the ideals of the native born

Americans in the Five Points (not to mention the native gangs). Through

Bennett’s Herald, the “Know Nothing Party” and even native gangs used the

newspaper to spread their negative judgments and views about slavery,

Catholicism, and immigrants among the public in the Five Points and around

New York.

It was though The Herald, which Bennett used to express his own

personal negative views of catholic immigrants and their negative influence

on the American public, which fueled the negative thoughts of the

inhabitants of the public towards Irish immigrants. Once Bennett’s Herald

gained recognition as a legitimate newspaper, Bennett began to turn from

factual new reports to opinionated theories supported by testimony by well

known power figures in the Five Points community. Bennett used his

connections with those in power in the Five Points to support his negative

opinions of immigrants. With the already growing popularity of the Herald

Bennett was able to spread his biased opinions of the Irish immigrants and

relate the Irish to the troubles of the everyday Five Points American.

Cecil ’14 22

Bennett’s relation to the problems of every day Americans and catholic Irish

immigrants created an uproar of anti-immigrant feelings powered by

Bennett’s Herald.

The social ethnic unrest expressed by the people in the Five Points was

only the beginning of a national problem. The Five Points was not the only

neighborhood that experienced an influx of immigrants, such was the case

with other cities around America. Other cities such as Philadelphia, Boston,

and other coastal cities along the east coast were also experiencing an influx

of European immigrants. People in the Five Points experienced similar

problems that other citizens in other cities felt. The mutual feeling was one

of social ethnic unrest, many people neglected the inclusion of foreign

immigrants in American society. It was only when the people of the Five

Points heard of people in other cities sharing their same negative feelings

towards immigrants that the social unrest spiraled out of control. What

followed were riots, mobs, assaults, robbery, and complete social unrest in

reaction the rejection of foreign immigrants in America. It was only when the

United States Army interfered that the unrest settled down.

A connection to the articles of crime in the Five Points can be made to

today’s inner city crime articles. For example, in the present Washington

Post there are daily stories of crime in areas of DC with high crime rates that

are located in the “Metro” section of the newspaper, which is located

towards the back of the paper. The location of the article suggests that crime

in those areas of Washington DC are expected and are not “news worthy”

Cecil ’14 23

enough for the front page. Yet, if the same crime were to happen in a suburb

with a low crime rate, it would be towards the front page because it is not

expected that such a crime would occur in a suburban setting. Same is true

with the articles of crime in the Five Points over time. As time passed, crime

in the Five Points was expected by the public and was not seen as “news”,

thus publishing the article towards the back of the paper to make room for

more “news worthy” articles because the articles about crime in the Five

Points were no longer considered news because they occur so often.

In the early 19th century the Five Points was in its most volatile state,

and so was the public reaction to the abolishment of slavery which occurred

around the same time. The abolishment of slavery was one that many

American born citizens in the Five Points did not agree with because of the

already strong population of foreign immigrants in the Five Points. Native

citizens felt as though the abolishment of slavery and giving African

American’s rights, was similar to giving rights to immigrants and received

the same negative response from the American born citizens in the Five

Points. There were many fights and riots in the streets of the Five Points in

relation to race or the abolishment of slavery. In one instance, an African

American pastor was waiting outside of a church on Little Water Street

before Sunday mass, while receiving negative looks and remarks from white

people as they walked into the church. One white man consulted the pastor

and invited him into the church, in reaction to inviting an African American

into a holy church, the man’s house was later broken into and burned to the

Cecil ’14 24

ground (Anbinder 9). A similar instance took place when pro-slavery activists

(consisting of mostly native born white Americans) heard of an abolitionist

meeting and erected a mob to combat it. The mob grew larger and larger as

it walked down the streets of the Five Points to the Bowery Theater where

the meeting was said to be held and after attacking the Theater and killing

two of the fourteen members of the meeting, the mob continued to walk the

streets of the Five Points attacking any African American they saw (Anbinder

12). The New York Transcript explained the aftermath of the mob as “after

the attack on Lewis Tappan’s House, when most of its contents were burned

and destroyed, the rioters would have been satisfied. . . the more they do

the more they resolve upon doing, and that like the horse-leech’s daughters.

They still cry, ‘Give! Give!’” (“The Riots”). The riots went on for the rest of

the night and continued into the day where it later died down, with only

limited interference by the police. The race riots were just one example of

how crime and the current issue of race and the abolishment of slavery in

the Five Points spewed out onto the streets.

Another topic covered in the newspapers was the topic of the drudgery

of urban poor that so many people of the Five Points experienced. Many

people of the Five Points were low income, mostly immigrants, and with poor

hygiene. The entire experience of being poor in the Five Points was a

tragedy. People who lived in the Points were stuck at the bottom of the social

ladder and there was no way to climb up the ladder. The people were also

forced to live in the worst conditions and in the worst circumstances. Such

Cecil ’14 25

stories were often written about in major newspapers because it appealed to

the entire population that lived in the Five Points and allowed the people in

the Five Points to relate to the stories that were explained in the

newspapers. The true story of American poverty is clearly described through

the lives of those who inhabited the Five Points.

The Five Points was the most infamous neighborhood in American

history, and many characteristics set it apart from other crime driven

neighborhoods, yet it is the influence of radical social environments that

caused crime the same way it did in the Five Points and today as well.

Cecil ’14 26

Works Cited

Ackerman, Kenneth D. Boss Tweed: The Rise and Fall of the Corrupt Politics

Who Conceived

the Soul of Modern New York. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005. Print

Ackerman’s

biography of the infamous politician William Tweed and the corrupt

Tammany Hall

where he ran most of his operations. I chose to use Ackerman’s

biography as a source

because it contained vital information on who Tweed was and the kind

of corrupt

operations that he ran.

Anbinder, Tyler. Five Points. New York: The Free Press, 2001. Print. Tyler

Anbinder’s novel is

an in depth analysis of the area of the Five Points and the way people

lived, as well as the

crimes that were committed. I chose to use Five Points as a source

because it contained in

Cecil ’14 27

depth explanation of the area of the Five Points and the kinds of

people that lived there.

Ashbury, Herbert. The Gangs of New York. New York: Knopf, 1928. Print.

Ashbury’s novel has

been a well known resource to the life of the Five Points and is the

most accuarate

depiction of the Five Points. The accuracy and the reputation of

Ashbury’s novel was why I chose to include it as a reputable source.

Burrows, Edward G. and Mike Wallace. Gotham A History of New York to

1898. New York:

Oxford U Press, 1999. Print. The novel gave a history of New York City,

including that

of the Five Points. The history leading up to the Five Points, gave me

an inside look at the actions that lead to the creation of the Five Points.

Callow Jr., Alexander B. The Tweed Ring. New York: Oxford U Press, 1966.

Print. Callow’s

novel is about the political group led by the William Tweed and the

kinds of corrupt actions that took place under his control of the Tweed

Ring. I chose to use Callow’s novel as a source because it gave

detailed descriptions of the political views of the Tweed Ring.

Clarke, Ronald V. Situational Crime Prevention. Chicago: U of Chicago Press,

1995. Print. The

Cecil ’14 28

journal by Clarke is about how certain crimes could be prevented

through controlling certain situations. I chose to use this as a source

because it explained the same source of crimes that took place in the

Five Points as well as how to possibly prevent such crimes.

Cohen, Patricia C. The Murder of Helen Jewett. New York: Knopf, 1998. Print.

This novel is

about the life and death of Helen Jewett, a prostitute in the Five Points

who’s murder was covered by all of the major newspapers throughout

New York City. I chose to use Cohen’s novel because it explained not

only the murder itself, but how it was covered by the media and how

the influence of the media changed the way people thought about the

crime.

Crouthamel, James L. Bennett’s New York Herald and the Rise of the Popular

Press. Syracuse:

Syracuse U, 1989. Print. Crouthamel’s book explains the history of the

Herald and its founder, as well as his political views and how it affected

his writing and his audiences opinion. I chose to use this book because

it was useful to make the connection between the media, its audience,

and the politics in the Five Points.

Gottfredson, Michael R. and Travis Hirshi. A General Theory of Crime.

Stanford: Stanford U

Press, 1990. Print. A General Theory of Crime is about how crime is

committed and what

Cecil ’14 29

drives people to commit such crimes. This was a useful source because

it gave analysis to

the reasons crimes are committed and can be applied to the crime in

the Five Points by analyzing the reasons for why the crimes were

committed.

McCabe Jr., James D. Lights and Shadows of New York Life. New York: Farrar,

Straus and

Giroux, 1970. Print. McCabe’s novel is about the history behind the

crime in New York City since its establishment. It goes into depth about

not just the history leading up to the city we see today, but how the

Five Points helped create the city we know today.

Ross, Joel H. What I Saw in New-York; A Bird’s Eye View of City Life. Auburn:

Derby & Miller,

1851. Print. Ross’ book is a first person account of the life of crime that

he experienced in the early 19th century in New York City, including the

Five Points. This was a useful source because it is a credible first

person account of the life of crime in the Five Points.

Sampson, Robert J., and W. Byron Groves. Community Structure and Crime:

Testing Social-

Disorganization Theory. Chicago: U of Chicago Press, 1989. Print.

Sampson’s journal is about how the structure of community can have

an impact on crime rates in urban cities. This was a useful source

Cecil ’14 30

because it gives analysis to the possible reasons behind the cause of

crime in the Five Points.

Schechter, Herald. True Crime: An American Anthology. New York: The

Library of America,

2008. Print. Schechter’s book is a combination of short excerpts of well

known crime stories. I used this as a source because it included

commentary on Ashbury’s well known novel about the Five Points and

the criminal activity that flooded its streets.

Siegel, Larry J. Introduction to Criminal Justice. 12th ed. Belmont: Wadsorth,

2008. Print.

Siegel’s book is a textbook that summarizes almost all aspects of the

criminal justice system. I chose to use this as a source because it

included explanations and summaries of relevant crime theories that

can be attributed to the crime in the Five Points.

“The Riots.” New York Transcript 14 Jul. 1835: B4. Print. “The Riots” is an

article in the old

New York Transcript newspaper that was a common source of media to

the people in the Five Points and was thus a relevant source for the

paper.

Uncovering the Gangs of New York. Prod. Writ. Dir. Harry Hanburry.

Discovery Channel. 2002.

DVD. “Uncovering the Gangs of New York” is a documentary that goes

through the history, and the lives of the people that lives in the Five

Cecil ’14 31

Points. I chose to use it as a reputable source because it emphasized

on the gangs of the Five Points and the crime that took place in its

streets.