Class Res

Assigned Reading: Thistlewaite and Wooldredge, Part 1, Chapter 4, Broken Windows: Does Urban Blight lead to crime? pp. 89-94
After reading the article answer the following questions in a discussion posting:

1. Do you think the methodology used to complete this study was valid?
2. What limitations do you see, if any, in the way the study was conducted?
3. Based on your knowledge and experience do you think this study’s findings are still valid? Why or Why not?

“Broken Windows” theory
An article appeared in the March 1982 issue of the Atlantic Monthly titled “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety.” The authors, James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, outlined a theory to explain why some communities were more crime prone than others. Known as the “broken windows” theory, the basic premise was quite simple: neighborhood deterioration and disorder lead to crime. Picture an abandoned building on your street with a single broken window. If the window is not repaired, it is assumed that no one cares about the building. If no one cares, it is just a matter of time before other windows are broken. The physical appearance of the area surrounding the property will start to deteriorate as well.
Criminals seek out these areas because they assume their odds of being detected are quite low since the community is not concerned about physical decay, as with the broken windows. Broken windows theory did not develop out of one distinct empirical study, but was based on the professional experiences and prior research of its authors. The theoretical propositions of broken windows are discussed below.
feaR anD cRime Since the first victimization surveys were conducted in the 1970s, crimi-nologists have been aware that crime and fear of crime are two distinct experiences. Fear of crime has little to do with the actual crime rate, as evidenced by recent crime trends. Violent crime rates have been on the decline since the mid-1990s, yet fear of crime remains at an all-time high. The extensive media coverage of crime may be partly to blame. Newspapers and televised news programs bombard us everyday with stories of horrific acts of violence and vicious criminals that threaten our safety. While the threat of violence is very real in some communities, it is not the only source of fear. According to Wilson and Kelling, people also fear “disorderly” people, or those who are perceived as unpredictable and unruly (i.e., panhandlers, prostitutes, drunks, drug addicts, and noisy teenagers). These individuals maintain a stronger presence in certain neighbor-hoods, leading residents to feel insecure and anxious—not necessarily because of something these individuals have done, but because of what they might do. It was precisely the disorderly popula-tion that foot patrol officers were in a position to manage. Kelling himself observed this during his interactions with foot patrol officers in Newark (Police Foundation 1981). The officers had become acquainted with the community and knew the regular troublemakers. Officers were also attentive to community norms and tolerance levels. For example, residents put up with drunks as long as they did not lie on the front steps and kept their alcohol in paper bags. Panhandlers were tolerated but not permitted to approach people waiting at bus stops. Foot patrol officers enforced these “rules” either formally via arrest, or (more often) informally through orders to move along or be quiet. Foot patrol officers were successful in maintaining order within the community, which, in turn, made people feel safe and more satisfied with the police.
DisoRDeR anD cRime Wilson and Kelling also argued that, at the neighborhood level, there was a relationship between disorder and crime. If an area became run down and deteriorated, crime soon followed (the broken windows metaphor). Criminals viewed these areas as desirable targets because no one paid attention to them. Crimes went undetected and, therefore, unreported to the police. In support of this argument, Wilson and Kelling cited an experiment conducted by Philip Zimbardo in 1969. He placed a car with no license plate and hood raised on a street in the Bronx, and a second (similar) car was placed on a street in Palo Alto, California. Within 10 min-utes, people started removing parts from the car in the Bronx. Once the parts were all taken, van-dals started smashing the car. The car in Palo Alto remained untouched for more than a week, so Zimbardo smashed it himself with a sledgehammer. Others joined in soon after, and a few hours later the car was completely destroyed. Differences in community standards helped explain why it took longer for vandals to target the car in Palo Alto. Abandoned cars were nothing new in the Bronx and vandalism was a common occurrence. A deserted vehicle was less typical in Palo Alto and vandalism was rare, but it only took one person to instigate the vandalism before others joined in. It became acceptable to smash the car because someone else had already done it. The car experiment illustrated the importance of community norms as a source of informal
social control and what can happen when informal controls break down. A disorderly popula-tion coupled with the physical deterioration of a neighborhood could progressively become more dangerous if these problems are not addressed. Law abiding residents either move out of the area or alter their behaviors out of fear. Criminals notice not only the physical appearance of an area but also the lack of law-abiding residents who are likely to call the police. Unable to defend itself, the neighborhood becomes more susceptible to crime.
Role of the Police
The shift away from foot patrol to motor patrol corresponded with a change in police work away from order maintenance to law enforcement. The motor vehicle became a tool to assist the police in their crime fighting efforts, but it also reduced the face-to-face interactions between the police and the public. Not only did police–community relations suffer as a consequence, but the abil-ity of the police to maintain order in the community was compromised. Without the informal interactions, the police lost sight of what was important to residents—their perceptions of safety. Police in motor patrols were less accessible to residents, and it was more difficult for them to keep track of disorderly people. When a person approached a foot patrol officer with a complaint, the police response tended to be immediate. For example, if I complain to an officer passing by about the noisy teenagers in front of my house, an officer is likely to send them away. If I call the police to report that my house was burglarized, it may take hours before an officer arrives and it is unlikely my property will be returned. This insight into the role of the police in our community provides an explanation for the findings of the Newark Foot Patrol Experiment. Residents felt safer and more satisfied with the police because the police were maintaining order. According to Wilson and Kelling, this had important implications for the informal social control of the community. The presence of the police was not a substitute for informal social control, but the police reinforced community standards and norms that were the basis of that control. Wilson and Kelling wrote: “Above all, we must return to our long-abandoned view that the police ought to protect communities as well as individuals” (p. 38).
fixing Broken Windows
Wilson and Kelling suggested that for the police to be effective in their efforts to reduce crime, they must first address community disorder. Concentrating on disorderly populations and minor offenses could have long-term positive benefits for crime control. Fourteen years later, Kelling and Catherine Coles (1996) offered more detailed strategies in their book Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. Their plan of action was more about crime prevention than crime control. If the police remained diligent in their order maintenance function, not only would minor offenses decrease but serious crimes would also be prevented. Criminals would be deterred from committing crimes in neighborhoods where there was a vis-ible police presence and the police were united with law-abiding residents who demonstrated an interest in keeping the community safe. Many of the strategies had already been put into practice by Kelling when he was hired as a consultant to the New York Transit Authority. Kelling, along with Transit Authority Police Chief William Bratton, launched a major anti-graffiti campaign to clean up the subways. They developed a program to target vandalism and panhandling with the goal of restoring order to the subway system. Not only was this goal accomplished, felony crime was significantly reduced as well.
criticisms
The logic underlying the broken windows theory was straightforward. Physical decay and dis-orderly people shaped perceptions of neighborhood safety and ultimately led to crime. Wilson
and Kelling identified some potential drawbacks to their theory that others have turned into criticisms. Allowing a community to determine how order is maintained may not be the same as what the law indicates. Wilson and Kelling raised the concern that community participation in the order maintenance function could turn into vigilantism. Critics took issue with the focus on disorderly people that are typically poor. Efforts to reduce the presence of the disorderly would unfairly target those individuals who were least able to defend themselves. Bernard Harcourt (2001) outlined several criticisms of the broken windows theory in his book The Illusion ofOrder: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing. The police are afforded tremendous discretion in situations involving their order maintenance functions and a concern is that extralegal factors such as economic status or even race and ethnicity might influence police practice. Harcourt argued that many efforts designed to maintain order resulted in aggressive police practices that infringed upon the constitutional rights of citizens. Redirecting patrol tactics to order mainte-nance might be more harmful to police–community relations. Harcourt found an increase in citizen complaints of police misconduct when the police concentrated on public order and mis-demeanor crimes. His research also suggested that the targets of police crackdowns on misde-meanor crimes tended to be minorities. Gary Stewart (1989) also voiced concerns that crime reduction strategies grounded in broken windows theory would have negative consequences for minorities. Minority groups are already overrepresented in the criminal justice system and affording the police greater authority to combat neighborhood disorder could lead to the arrests of even more minorities. Broken windows policing has been equated with “zero tolerance policing.” Zero-tolerance
policing involves the police aggressively enforcing minor crimes to achieve a deterrent effect for more serious offenses. According to Kelling, this was a misrepresentation of broken windows theory. Communities might desire a zero-tolerance approach to order maintenance, but it was not the only approach that could be taken (Sousa and Kelling 2006). Under a broken windows model, residents would have a voice in deciding which minor crimes would be enforced and if the enforcement was formal or informal. Samuel Walker (1984) took issue with many of the assumptions underlying broken windows theory. He challenged the notion that returning to the watchman style of policing would be good for many communities. There were justifiable reasons why this type of policing was abandoned in the early 1900s. Corruption, inefficiency, and a lack of political legitimacy led to the reforms that Wilson and Kelling proposed we get rid of. It was questionable whether or not the police could effectively maintain order in neighborhoods where there were conflicting norms and standards of behavior. Nineteenth-century police officers were no more in tune with the needs of their communities than officers are today. Much of the criticism directed at Wilson and Kelling focused on the lack of empirical sup-port for their key theoretical concepts. The theory developed out of their previous research on police functions (Wilson) and the allocation of foot patrol officers in the community (Kelling). The alleged causal relationship between disorder and crime remained in dispute. While Kelling and Cole (1996) offered support for the theory with evidence from the Newark Foot Patrol Experiment and from the New York Transit Authority study, other scholars have failed to estab-lish anything more than a correlation between disorder and crime. In a large-scale study of urban decay in Chicago communities, Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush (1999) failed to find support that disorder leads to crime. Neighborhoods with high crime rates tended to have sig-nificant signs of disorder (visible garbage, vandalism, abandoned cars, etc.), but disorder was not the cause of crime—both disorder and crime resulted from high concentrations of poverty and low levels of collective efficacy. Disorder and crime flourished in communities where there was a breakdown in informal social control. A lack of trust and cohesion among neighbors made it difficult for residents to intervene in situations that would prevent disorder and crime. Efforts to reduce disorder and crime should also address the lack of informal social control mechanisms within communities. On the other hand, research by Yili Xu, Mora Fielder, and Karl Flaming (2005) questioned the assertion that collective efficacy was responsible for both disorder and crime. Their data from Colorado Springs revealed that neighborhood deterioration contrib-uted to more serious types of crime regardless of collective efficacy. Establishing causation in social science research is a difficult but necessary task when theories such as broken windows become the basis for police practices and policy making. Programs that target only the correlates of crime rarely succeed. David Thacher (2004), however, asserted that the police should pursue some order maintenance functions even if more serious crimes are not prevented. Taking action against vandalism and graffiti could help to improve the quality of life for neighborhood residents and might lead to increased property values. Critics have also alleged that aggressively targeting particular areas of a community known
to have greater amounts of disorder may actually lead to residents feeling less safe and more dis-satisfied with the police (Kochel 2011). This criticism has been challenged by Weisburd et al. (2011), who recently evaluated the “broken windows” approach in areas characterized as “hot spots” of criminal activity. Utilizing an experimental design, they discovered that residents in tar-geted areas reported no greater levels of fear than other residents, nor did residents indicate any reduction in collective efficacy. Bratton and Kelling (2006) argued that efforts to discredit broken windows theory were politically motivated. Many of the proponents of broken windows theory were conservative while most of the attacks came from liberals. A lot of liberal criminologists held firm to their beliefs that poverty, disadvantage, and discrimination were the root causes of crime and that the only way to combat crime was through broad social policies designed to rem-edy these problems. At the community level, broken windows theory provided the police with strategies and tactics that had the potential to reduce crime but fell short of addressing larger social problems. A new model of policing has recently surfaced based in large part on the criti-cisms levied against “broken windows” policing. Advocates of the “procedural justice model” argue that many of the aggressive tactics utilized by the police in their response to disorder have undermined police legitimacy. Citizen perceptions of legitimacy are directly related to their will-ingness to be cooperative with police and to obey the law (Schulhofer et al. 2011).
significance and subsequent Research
Wilson and Kelling’s article generated considerable interest in the idea that neighborhood dis-order and decay are related to crime. Much of the subsequent empirical research has focused on determining the exact causal ordering of these concepts. In 1990, Wesley Skogan tested the broken windows theory and published the results in Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral Decay in American Neighborhoods. Skogan’s (1990) study included surveys and field research from 40 neighborhoods located within six American cities (Atlanta, Chicago, Houston, Newark, Philadelphia, and San Francisco). He discovered that residents tended to agree on the sources of disorder and their perceptions of safety were shaped by similar circumstances. Even in heteroge-neous communities there appeared to be consensus on the definition of disorder. Skogan found that “disorderly” communities lacked the essential elements of informal social control necessary to reduce crime. Neighbors were less likely to offer assistance and to help supervise unattended homes. Levels of fear were also higher in disorderly communities and altered the behaviors of many residents. Fearful residents stayed inside after dark and did not like being outside alone. The residents’ fears were justified. According to Skogan, disorderly neighborhoods had more crime. Addressing the disorder (or repairing the “broken windows”) was an important step in helping residents to reclaim their communities. Broken windows theory has had a major impact on policing in the United States. According
to the circulation department at the Atlantic Monthly, Broken Windows was their most repro-duced article (Sousa and Kelling 2006). Several large cities including New York, Boston, Chicago, Baltimore, Los Angeles, and San Francisco adopted aggressive police crackdowns on disorderly conduct and misdemeanor offenses. The most public display of broken windows in action took place in New York City when Rudolph Guiliani became mayor in 1994. Guiliani, along with his new police chief, William Bratton, introduced a comprehensive broken windows program in the city. Police officers were instructed to maintain a zero-tolerance policy regarding the enforce-ment of misdemeanor crimes. When serious crimes started to decline, broken windows theory received the credit and New York became a model for the rest of the country (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2002). New York City experienced a 60 percent decline in violent crime and a 50 percent reduction in property crime between 1990 and 1998. According to Kelling and Sousa (2001), broken windows policing was a factor in these crime reductions. Their study also found that while the number of citizen complaints increased for a short period in the mid-1990s, com-plaints decreased from 1995 to 1999. Not everyone was convinced that the significant decline in crime in New York City could
be attributed to police practices derived from broken windows theory. Ben Bowling (1999) ana-lyzed murder rates in New York City and found that the rates spiked between 1990 and 1991 when the use of crack cocaine was at an all-time high. Beginning in 1992, the city witnessed a decrease in the crack cocaine market and murder rates subsequently dropped. It is also important to consider that significant reductions in crime occurred throughout the United States during the 1990s. San Francisco’s violent crime rate dropped even more than New York City without the police cracking down on neighborhood disorder (Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice 2002). Broken windows and problem-oriented policing helped the community-policing movement gain momentum in the early 1980s, and today most police agencies have adopted some form of com-munity policing. The US government has invested over twelve billion dollars in this initiative (Wilson 2012). A large part of these funds were used by departments to recruit and train officers under a community/problem oriented policing model. Police departments all across the country looked for ways to improve the public’s image of the police and increase citizen cooperation and involvement in efforts to keep communities safe. Broken windows and problem-oriented polic-ing provided such tools. An evaluation of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, the largest community policing program in the US, has provided further evidence in support of expanding the role of the police in our communities. Police officers working under the CAPS model are encouraged to mobilize community residents in an effort to develop collaborations between the public and police to solve community problems related to crime, fear, and disorder. An evalu-ation of the CAPS program has yielded positive results. Citizens also reported greater levels of satisfaction with the police (Lombardo et al. 2010). Police officers today work closely with residents to learn what the sources of disorder are
and how much citizens are willing to tolerate. Under a problem-oriented policing model, police can work with the community to address the underlying causes of crime and disorder. Both per-spectives also helped to re-define the role of police in our communities. The police now assume a role in building and maintaining valuable informal social control networks that help foster a sense of safety among residents.

References
Bowling, B. (1999). “The Rise and Fall of New York Murder: Zero Tolerance or Crack’s Decline?” British Journal of Criminology 39:531–54.
Bratton, W., and G. Kelling (2006). “There Are No Cracks in Broken Windows: Ideological Academics Are Trying to Undermine a Perfectly Good Idea.” National Review Online. February.
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (2002). Shattering
“Broken Windows”: An Analysis of San Francisco’s Alternative Crime Policies. San Francisco, CA.
Harcourt, B. (2001). Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP.
Kelling, G., and W. Sousa (2001). “Do Police Matter: An Analysis of the Impact of New York City’s Police Reforms.” Civic Report No. 22. New York: Manhattan Institute.
Kelling, G., and C. Coles (1996). Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. New York: Free Press.
Kochel, R. (2011). “Constructing Hot Spots Policing: Unexamined Consequences
for Disadvantaged
Populations and for Police Legitimacy.” Criminal Justice Police Review 22(3):350–74.
Lombardo, R., D. Olson, and M. Staton (2010). “The Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy: A Reassessment of the CAPS Program.” Policing 33: 586–606.
Police Foundation (1981). The Newark Foot Patrol Experiment. Washington, DC: Police Foundation.
Sampson, R., and S. Raudenbush (1999). “Systematic Social Observation of Public Spaces: A New Look at Disorder in Urban Neighborhoods.” American Journal of Sociology 105:603–51.
Further Reading
Bottoms, A., and J. Tankebe (2012). “Beyond Procedural Justice: A Dialogic Approach to Legitimacy in Criminal Justice.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 102:119–70.
Cordner, G. (1986). “Fear of Crime and the Police: An Evaluation of a Fear Reduction Strategy.” Journal of Police Science and Administration 14:223–33.
Harcourt, B. (1998). “Reflecting on the Subject: A Critique of the Social Influence Conception of Deterrence, the Broken Windows Theory, and Order Maintenance Policing New York Style.” Michigan Law Review 97:291–389.
Herbert, S. (2001). “Policing the Contemporary City: Fixing Broken Windows or Shoring Up Neo-Liberalism?” Theoretical Criminology 5:445–66.
Kelling, G. (1999). Broken Windows and Police Discretion. Research Report. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice.
Taylor, R. (2001). Breaking Away From Broken Windows. Boulder, CO: Westview.
Weisburd, D., and J. Eck (2004). “What Can Police Do To Reduce Crime, Disorder, and Fear?” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 593:42–65.
Skogan, W. (1990). Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral Decay in American Neighborhoods. New York: Free Press.
Schulhofer, S., T. Tyler, and A. Huq (2011). “American Policing at a Crossroads: Unsustainable Policies and the Procedural Justice Alternative.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 101:335–74.
Sousa, W., and G. Kelling (2006) “Of ‘Broken Windows’, Criminology, and Criminal Justice.” In Police Innovation: Contrasting Perspectives, edited by A. Weisburd and A. Braga, 77–97. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP.
Stewart, G. (1998). “Black Codes and Broken Windows: The Legacy of Racial Hegemony in Anti-Gang Civil Injunctions.” Yale Law Journal 107:2249–79.
Thacher, D. (2004). “Order Maintenance Reconsidered: Moving Beyond Strong Causal Reasoning.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 94:101–33.
Walker, S. (1984). “Broken Windows’ and Fractured History: The Use and Misuse of History in Recent Patrol Analysis.” Justice Quarterly 1:57–90.
Weisburd, D., J. Hinkle, C. Famega, and J. Ready (2011).
“The Possible ‘Backfire’ Effects of Hot Spots Policing: An Experimental Assessment of Impacts on Legitimacy, Fear, and Collective Efficacy.” Journal of Experimental Criminology 7:297–320.
Wilson, J. (2012). “Articulating the Dynamic Police Staffing Challenge: An Examination of Supply and Demand.” Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management 35:327–55.
Xu, Y., M. Fiedler, and K. Flaming (2005). “Discovering the Impact of Community Policing: The Broken Windows Thesis, Collective Efficacy, and Citizens’ Judgment.” Journal ofResearch in Crime and Delinquency 42:147–86.