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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Broken windows theory | 4/8 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T15:21:43.774356+00:00 | kb-cron |
=== Precursor experiments === Before the introduction of this theory by Wilson and Kelling, Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, arranged an experiment testing the broken-window theory in 1969. Zimbardo arranged for an automobile with no license plates and the hood up to be parked idle in a Bronx neighbourhood and a second automobile, in the same condition, to be set up in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked within minutes of its abandonment. Zimbardo noted that the first "vandals" to arrive were a family—a father, mother, and a young son—who removed the radiator and battery. Within twenty-four hours of its abandonment, everything of value had been stripped from the vehicle. After that, the car's windows were smashed in, parts torn, upholstery ripped, and children were using the car as a playground. At the same time, the vehicle sitting idle in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week until Zimbardo himself went up to the vehicle and deliberately smashed it with a sledgehammer. Soon after, people joined in for the destruction, although criticism has been levelled at this claim as the destruction occurred after the car was moved to the campus of Stanford university and Zimbardo's own students were the first to join him. Zimbardo observed that the majority of the adult "vandals" in both cases was primarily well dressed, Caucasian, clean-cut and seemingly respectable individuals. It is believed that, in a neighborhood such as the Bronx where the history of abandoned property and theft is more prevalent, vandalism occurs much more quickly, as the community generally seems apathetic. Similar events can occur in any civilized community when communal barriers—the sense of mutual regard and obligations of civility—are lowered by actions that suggest apathy.
=== New York City ===
In 1985, the New York City Transit Authority hired George L. Kelling, the author of Broken Windows, as a consultant. Kelling was later hired as a consultant to the Boston and the Los Angeles police departments. One of Kelling's adherents, David L. Gunn, implemented policies and procedures based on the Broken Windows Theory, during his tenure as President of the New York City Transit Authority. One of his major efforts was to lead a campaign from 1984 to 1990 to rid graffiti from New York's subway system. In 1990, William J. Bratton became head of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton was influenced by Kelling, describing him as his "intellectual mentor". In his role, he implemented a tougher stance on fare evasion, faster arrestee processing methods, and background checks on all those arrested. After being elected Mayor of New York City in 1993, Rudy Giuliani hired Bratton as his police commissioner to implement similar policies and practices throughout the city. Giuliani heavily subscribed to Kelling and Wilson's theories. Such policies emphasized addressing crimes that negatively affect quality of life. In particular, Bratton directed beat officers to more strictly enforce laws against petty offenses like subway fare evasion, public drinking, public urination, and graffiti. Bratton also revived the New York City Cabaret Law, a previously dormant Prohibition-era ban on dancing in unlicensed establishments. Throughout the late 1990s, the New York Police Department (NYPD) shut down many of the city's acclaimed nightspots for illegal dancing.
According to a 2001 study by Kelling and William Sousa of crime trends in New York City, rates of both petty and serious crime saw significant drops after the aforementioned quality-of-life policing policies were implemented. Furthermore, crime across all categories continued to decline for the following ten years. This data suggested that policies based on the Broken Windows Theory were effective. Later, in 2016, Brian Jordan Jefferson used the precedent of Kelling and Sousa's study to conduct fieldwork in the 70th precinct of New York City, in which it was corroborated that crime mitigation in the area concerned "quality of life" issues, which included noise complaints and loitering. The falling crime rates throughout New York City had built a mutual relationship between residents and law enforcement in vigilance of disorderly conduct. However, other studies do not find a causal relationship between the adoption of such policies and decreases in crime. The decrease may have been part of a broader trend across the United States. The rates of most crimes, including all categories of violent crime, made consecutive declines from their peak in 1990, under Giuliani's predecessor, David Dinkins. Other cities also experienced less crime, even though they had different police policies. Other factors, such as the 39% drop in New York City's unemployment rate between 1992 and 1999, could also explain the decrease reported by Kelling and Sousa. A 2017 study found that when the NYPD stopped aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes in late 2014 and early 2015 that civilian complaints of the major crimes of burglary, felony assault, and grand larceny, decreased slightly with large error bars during and shortly after sharp reductions in proactive policing. There was no statistically significant effect on other major crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, or grand theft auto. These results are touted as challenging prevailing scholarship as well as conventional wisdom on authority and legal compliance by implying that aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts.
=== Albuquerque === Albuquerque, New Mexico, instituted the Safe Streets Program in the late 1990s based on the Broken Windows Theory. The Safe Streets Program sought to deter and reduce unsafe driving and incidence of crime by saturating areas where high crime and crash rates were prevalent with law enforcement officers. Operating under the theory that American Westerners use roadways much in the same way that American Easterners use subways, the developers of the program reasoned that lawlessness on the roadways had much the same effect as it did on the New York City Subway. Effects of the program were reviewed by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and were published in a case study. The methodology behind the program demonstrates the use of deterrence theory in preventing crime.