Broken Windows Theory (BWT)
What books or literature reviews might interest you for 2007? Several years ago we had a year long focus on Restorative Justice books. Do you remember the review of The Kite Runner in 2006? From time to time we have reviewed novels related to your juvenile justice role. This year, with your assistance, we plan to comment on one important magazine article, journal articles and at least two recent books related to police, courts, victims and the Broken Windows Theory (BWT). Please send your editor your own ‘broken windows’ contributions.
Just what is the Broken Windows Theory? Why not start with your own GOOGLE or ASK web site search on this topic? You will be surprised by the number of ‘hits’ you get on juvenile justice and broken windows theory. The logical place to then go is to the seminal article, Broken Windows: the Police and Neighborhood Safety, by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, published in the Atlantic Monthly, March 1982 (see www.theatlantic.com or other sites to read/print the article for your reflection). This article served as the foundation for the ‘order maintenance’ policing strategy implemented in New York City by Major Rudolph Giuliani and his police commissioner. The policy, also known as the ‘quality of life initiative,’ called for aggressive enforcement of misdemeanor offenses previously ignored or dealt with on the streets in a ‘catch and release’ fashion. The theory, without any real documentation, postulated that big crimes grow out of disorder and smaller crimes. So, the order of the day became ‘get tough’ and the criminal justice net widened. Kids and adults were rounded up for loitering, public urination, public drunkenness, graffiti, curfew violations and panhandling and were kept in custody for hours, if not longer. Those with no criminal record often got one, thus making the job search even more difficult. Several books outline the New York policing study. Recent literature also offers commentary on ‘order maintenance’ policing in Chicago, Baltimore, Newark and other communities. One example of the magnitude of the change is policy may be helpful at this point.
The Chicago city council sought to thwart gang activities (as we now do in Virginia) by the enactment of a city code prohibiting loitering in a group with ‘no purpose.’ In 1982 police officers were given arrest authority and courts could subsequently incarcerate (up to 6 months), fine or impose community service work for such loitering. In the few years to follow there were 89,000 documented police orders to disburse and the arrest of 42,000 people. Between 1994 and 1998 the new Chicago emphasis on order maintenance policing accounted for between 40,000 and 85,000 additional adult misdemeanor charges.
The Broken Windows article and the subsequent Giuliani and Bratton article, Police Strategy #5: Reclaiming the Public Spaces of New York, contributed to the massive increase in the number of incarnated individuals over the past two decades. The nine page magazine article postulated that public disorder leads directly to further disregard of property, lawlessness and decay. As stated in the article, “disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence. If a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.” Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo completed an earlier study on this theme. He placed automobiles with no license tag and the hood up on the streets of Bronx, N.Y. and Palo Alto, Ca. “The car in the Bronx was attacked by vandals within ten minutes. The first to arrive were a family-father, mother, and young son- who removed the radiator and battery. Within 24 hours, virtually everything of value had been removed. The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledge hammer. Soon, passersby were joining in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed.”
Wilson and Kelling concluded by urging a high level of ‘order maintenance’ and almost zero tolerance for any infractions in order to stem the projected drift to all out moral decay and increased crime. They urged a “return to our long abandoned view that police ought to protect communities as well as individuals. The police- and the rest of us- ought to recognize the importance of maintaining intact communities, without broken windows.” Have police practices and court responses in your community been guided by this thinking? Certainly the huge national increase in incarceration over the past two decades have been driven by such thinking. Several newer books address the degree to which public order is at all related to a safer community. Some of these writings are academic and boring. But, others are lively reading and can benefit any juvenile justice professional willing to consider the thoughts found in Fixing Broken Windows or the Rethinking Punishment and Criminal Punishment section of the book, Illusion of Order. Your consideration of the BWT, even with proper application of our ‘risk assessment’ instruments, can actually effect how you do business and your overall recidivism rates in unexpected fashion. Who would have thought a nine page article could create such a snowball effect?
You can find these books via interlibrary loan, at your local college, or even purchased as a used book for your court or facility library. Might you desire to review these for your VJJA colleagues in 2007? We read in order to learn and to improve our decision process. Increased knowledge of the BWT can guide and possibly improve your decisions related to probation officer curfew checks or intake level decision to mediate or divert, rather than adjudicate. Overall agency recidivism figures can be improved by each decision that we make- some guided by what we can learn from the body of Broken Window research.
Eric Assur is employed by the 17th Court Service Unit in Arlington. Suggestions for future book reviews can be sent to bookem@vjja.org.
