Crime and police
From The City Wiki · Reference page · 4 entries · game data version 1.10.11
Crime and police: Break-ins, police staffing and hiring officers.
Crime in The City means break-ins at homes, at night. Police cover, enough officers and well-lit streets keep it down. Poverty, unemployment and homeless camps push it up.
Break-ins
Every home has a chance of being broken into each night, checked at nine in the evening. On a typical street the chance starts very low, at 0.15%. Then:
- Cheap land (a land value under 40) where the residents are under 50% happy adds 7%.
- Unemployment adds up to 1% more: the whole 1% if everyone were out of work, half that if half were.
- A homeless camp nearby adds 6%, 12% near a big camp and 22% near a huge one.
Then the police take their share off. A police station that covers the home cuts the chance by up to 85% when the force is fully staffed, less when it is short of officers. A street light by the door cuts it by 35%. A jail in the city, an intelligence agency in reach, the Neighborhood watch policy and a recent break-in at the same house all cut it further.
A family that has been broken into is shaken: -8 to their happiness for 4 days.
Police staffing
A fully staffed force has one police car for every 4,000 residents. A city of 40,000 needs 10. Each station comes with its own cars, and you can hire extra officers at a station in City Hall's Police page for $450 each. Every officer brings a car and spends 2 days at the police academy first.
| Station | Cars | Room for extra officers |
|---|---|---|
| Small police station | 2 | 3 |
| Police headquarters | 4 | 6 |
| Large police station | 3 | 4 |
| Intelligence agency | 2 | None |
The advisor tells you when the city has 4,000 residents or more and fewer than four fifths of the cars it needs.
Police and happiness
Homes in reach of a police station get +3 (+5 if the city also has a jail). A short-staffed force takes up to 4 points back in a small city, and more as the city grows. Homes no station reaches get -4, which grows to -14 at 50,000 residents.
In Easy mode police staffing makes no difference to happiness or crime. Break-ins start at 2% for every home and are mostly about dark streets, cheap land and unhappy residents, and a patrol down the street lately halves the chance.
See also
- Fires – Fire engines, how fires spread, casualties, and fires from homeless camps.
- Weather and disasters – The Force of Nature pack: weather, high winds, storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, power cuts, repairs and getting ready.
- All reference categories
- How the City Works
The reference pages are made from the game's own data, version 1.10.11. Numbers can change between versions.