The term the broken windows theory gets thrown around a lot yet many people do not understand it. We believe that adopting such a plan would be the start to SAVING OUR BEREA and eventually restoring the Berea to what it is intended to be, a safe, clean, law-abiding urban environment. Here is some background to this theory courtesy of Wikipedia. The broken windows theory is a criminological theory of the norm-setting and signalling effect of urban disorder and vandalism on additional crime and anti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoring urban environments in a well-ordered condition may stop further vandalism and escalation into more serious crime. The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. Since then it has been subject to great debate both within the social sciences and in the public sphere. The theory has been used as a motivation for several reforms in criminal policy. The broken windows theory has received support from several empirical studies and has also been the subject of criticism. A 1996 criminology and urban sociology book, Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by George L. Kelling and a co-author Catharine Coles, is based on the article but develops the argument in greater detail. It discusses the theory in relation to crime and strategies to contain or eliminate crime from urban neighborhoods. A successful strategy for preventing vandalism, say the books authors, is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage. Clean up the sidewalk every day, and the tendency is for litter not to accumulate (or for the rate of littering to be much less). Problems do not escalate and thus respectable residents do not flee a neighborhood. Although work done by the police is crucial towards crime prevention, Oscar Newman, in his 1972 book, Defensible Space, explained that the presence of the police authority is just not enough for a safe and crime-free city. People in the community also need to lend a hand towards crime prevention. The theory that Newman proposes is that people will take care of and protect their own spaces they feel they have an investment in, arguing that an area will eventually be safer if the people feel a sense of ownership and responsibility towards the area. The reason why broken windows and acts of vandalism are still prevalent is because communities simply do not seem to care for it. Regardless of how many times the windows have been repaired, the society still has to invest some of their time to keep it safe. The negligence of society towards any form of a broken window signifies their lack of concern for the community. Newman states this as a clear sign that the society has accepted this disorder, allowing for the unrepaired broken windows to display the vulnerability and lack of defence against the situation. The theory thus makes two major claims: that further petty crime and low-level anti-social behavior will be deterred, and that major crime will be prevented as a result. Criticism of the theory has tended to focus only on the latter claim. The books author, George L. Kelling, was hired as a consultant to the New York City Transit Authority in 1985, and measures to test the broken windows theory were implemented by David Gunn. The presence of graffiti was intensively targeted, and the subway system was cleaned from 1984 until 1990. Kelling has also been hired as a consultant to Bostons and Los Angeless Police Departments. In 1990, William J. Bratton became head of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton described George L. Kelling as his intellectual mentor, and implemented zero tolerance of fare-dodging, easier arrestee processing methods and background checks on all those arrested. Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani hired Bratton as his police commissioner who adopted the strategy more widely in New York City after Giulianis election in 1993, under the rubrics of quality of life and zero tolerance. Influenced heavily by Kelling and Wilsons article, Giuliani was determined to put the theory into action. He set out to prove that New Yorks infamous image of being too big, too unruly, too diverse, too broke to manage, - was, in fact, manageable. Thus, Giulianis zero-tolerance roll out was part of an interlocking set of wider reforms, crucial parts of which had been underway since 1985. Bratton had the police more strictly enforce the law against subway fare evasion, public drinking, public urination, graffiti artists and the squeegee men who had been wiping windshields of stopped cars and demanding payment. Near the beginning, Bratton received criticism for his work for going after these petty crimes. The general statement towards this was Why care about panhandlers, hookers, or graffiti artists when there are more serious crimes to be dealt with in the city? The main notion of the broken window theory is that small crimes can make way for larger crimes. If the petty criminals are often overlooked and given space to do what they want, then their level of criminality might escalate from petty crimes to more serious offenses. Brattons work is to attack while the offenders are still green, as it would prevent an escalation of criminal acts in the future. According to the 2001 study of crime trends in New York by George Kelling and William Sousa, rates of both petty and serious crime fell suddenly and significantly, and continued to drop for the following ten years.
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 10:49:12 +0000
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