Broken Windows

South Park Studies: Safety in the Public Realm

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Broken Windows — introduced in 1982 by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson — is one of the most widely cited and controversial theories in criminology. The theory proposes that visible signs of crime create an environment that encourages more serious crimes, and so by focusing on minor crimes like vandalism, cities can prevent more serious crimes. The theory has become linked to controversial “stop and frisk” policies, although the authors of the original article have cautioned that broken windows policing requires careful training and a positive relationship with their communities. Many revisions, defenses, and critiques have been published in the years since Kelling and Wilson’s original article. We recommend starting with the original article, published in the Atlantic in March 1982:

Broken Windows
The Atlantic, March 1982

In the mid-1970s The State of New Jersey announced a “Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program,” designed to improve the quality of community life in twenty-eight cities. As part of that program, the state provided money to help cities take police officers out of their patrol cars and assign them to walking beats. The governor and other state officials were enthusiastic about using foot patrol as a way of cutting crime, but many police chiefs were skeptical. Foot patrol, in their eyes, had been pretty much discredited. It reduced the mobility of the police, who thus had difficulty responding to citizen calls for service, and it weakened headquarters control over patrol officers.

Many police officers also disliked foot patrol, but for different reasons: it was hard work, it kept them outside on cold, rainy nights, and it reduced their chances for making a “good pinch.” In some departments, assigning officers to foot patrol had been used as a form of punishment. And academic experts on policing doubted that foot patrol would have any impact on crime rates; it was, in the opinion of most, little more than a sop to public opinion. But since the state was paying for it, the local authorities were willing to go along.

Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars.

These findings may be taken as evidence that the skeptics were right- foot patrol has no effect on crime; it merely fools the citizens into thinking that they are safer. But in our view, and in the view of the authors of the Police Foundation study (of whom Kelling was one), the citizens of Newark were not fooled at all. They knew what the foot-patrol officers were doing, they knew it was different from what motorized officers do, and they knew that having officers walk beats did in fact make their neighborhoods safer.

Read the full article here.

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South Park Studies is a new initiative designed to bring you news and resources on the topics we hear questions about the most — homelessness, daycare and school availability, transportation, and more. Each topic will consist of a multi-week series of article recommendations, volunteer opportunities, and more. Catch up on our first series, exploring homelessness, by clicking here. Learn more about South Park by visiting southpark.la.