What Is the Broken Windows Theory?

The broken windows theory states that visible signs of crime in urban areas lead to further crime. The theory is often associated with the 2000 case of Illinois v. Wardlow, in which the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed that the police, based on the legal doctrine of probable cause, have the authority to detain and physically search, or “stop-and-frisk,” people in crime-prone neighborhoods who appear to be behaving suspiciously.

Key Takeaways: Broken Windows Theory

• The broken windows theory of criminology holds that visible signs of crime in densely-populated, lower-income urban areas will encourage additional criminal activity.
• Broken windows neighborhood policing tactics employ heightened enforcement of relatively minor “quality of life” crimes like loitering, public drinking, and graffiti.
• The theory has been criticized for encouraging discriminatory police practices, such as unequal enforcement based on racial profiling.

Broken Windows Theory Definition

In the field of criminology, the broken windows theory holds that lingering visible evidence of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil unrest in densely populated urban areas suggests a lack of active local law enforcement and encourages people to commit further, even more serious crimes.

The theory was first suggested in 1982 by social scientist, George L. Kelling in his article, “Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety” published in The Atlantic. Kelling explained the theory as follows:

“Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

“Or consider a pavement. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of refuse from take-out restaurants there or even break into cars.”

Kelling based his theory on the results of an experiment conducted by Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo in 1969. In his experiment, Zimbardo parked an apparently disabled and abandoned car in a low-income area of the Bronx, New York City, and a similar car in an affluent Palo Alto, California neighborhood. Within 24 hours, everything of value had been stolen from the car in the Bronx. Within a few days, vandals had smashed the car’s windows and ripped out the upholstery. At the same time, the car abandoned in Palo Alto remained untouched for over a week, until Zimbardo himself smashed it with a sledgehammer. Soon, other people Zimbardo described as mostly well dressed, “clean-cut” Caucasians joined in the vandalism. Zimbardo concluded that in high-crime areas like the Bronx, where such abandoned property is commonplace, vandalism and theft occur far faster as the community takes such acts for granted. However, similar crimes can occur in any community when the people’s mutual regard for proper civil behavior is lowered by actions that suggest a general lack of concern.

Kelling concluded that by selectively targeting minor crimes like vandalism, public intoxication, and loitering, police can establish an atmosphere of civil order and lawfulness, thus helping to prevent more serious crimes.

Broken Windows Policing

In1993, New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and police commissioner William Bratton cited Kelling and his broken windows theory as a basis for implementing a new “tough-stance” policy aggressively addressing relatively minor crimes seen as negatively affecting the quality of life in the inner-city.

Bratton directed NYPD to step up enforcement of laws against crimes like public drinking, public urination, and graffiti. He also cracked down on so-called “squeegee men,” vagrants who aggressively demand payment at traffic stops for unsolicited car window washings. Reviving a Prohibition-era city ban on dancing in unlicensed establishments, police controversially shuttered many of the city’s night clubs with records of public disturbances.

While studies of New York’s crime statistics conducted between 2001 and 2017 suggested that enforcement policies based on the broken windows theory were effective in reducing rates of both minor and serious crimes, other factors may have also contributed to the result. For example, New York’s crime decrease may have simply been part of a nationwide trend that saw other major cities with different policing practices experience similar decreases over the period. In addition, New York City’s 39% drop in the unemployment rate could have contributed to the reduction in crime.

In 2005, police in the Boston suburb of Lowell, Massachusetts, identified 34 “crime hot spots” fitting the broken windows theory profile. In 17 of the spots, police made more misdemeanor arrests, while other city authorities cleared trash, fixed streetlights, and enforced building codes. In the other 17 spots, no changes in routine procedures were made. While the areas given special attention saw a 20% reduction in police calls, a study of the experiment concluded that simply cleaning up the physical environment had been more effective than an increase in misdemeanor arrests.

Today, however, five major U.S. cities—New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston, and Denver—all acknowledge employing at least some neighborhood policing tactics based on Kelling’s broken windows theory. In all of these cities, police stress aggressive enforcement of minor misdemeanor laws.

Critics

Despite its popularity in major cities, police policy based on the broken windows theory is not without its critics, who question both its effectiveness and fairness of application.

In 2005, University of Chicago Law School professor Bernard Harcourt published a study finding no evidence that broken windows policing actually reduces crime. “We don’t deny that the ‘broken windows’ idea seems compelling,” wrote Harcourt. “The problem is that it doesn’t seem to work as claimed in practice.”

Specifically, Harcourt contended that crime data from New York City’s 1990s application of broken windows policing had been misinterpreted. Though the NYPD had realized greatly reduced crime rates in the broken windows enforcement areas, the same areas had also been the areas worst affected by the crack-cocaine epidemic that caused citywide homicide rates to soar. “Everywhere crime skyrocketed as a result of crack, there were eventual declines once the crack epidemic ebbed,” Harcourt note. “This is true for police precincts in New York and for cities across the country.” In short, Harcourt contended that New York’s declines in crime during the 1990s were both predictable and would have happened with or without broken windows policing.

Harcourt concluded that for most cities, the costs of broken windows policing outweigh the benefits. “In our opinion, focusing on minor misdemeanors is a diversion of valuable police funding and time from what really seems to help—targeted police patrols against violence, gang activity and gun crimes in the highest-crime ‘hot spots.’”

Broken windows policing has also been criticized for its potential to encourage unequal, potentially discriminatory enforcement practices such as racial profiling, too often with disastrous results.

Arising from objections to practices like “Stop-and-Frisk,” critics point to the case of Eric Garner, an unarmed Black man killed by a New York City police officer in 2014. After observing Garner standing on a street corner in a high-crime area of Staten Island, police suspected him of selling “loosies,” untaxed cigarettes. When, according to the police report, Garner resisted arrest, an officer took him to the ground in a chock hold. An hour later, Garner died in the hospital of what the coroner determined to be homicide resulting from, “Compression of neck, compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.” After a grand jury failed to indict the officer involved, anti-police protests broke out in several cities.

Since then, and due to the deaths of other unarmed Black men accused of minor crimes predominantly by white police officers, more sociologists and criminologists have questioned the effects of broken windows theory policing. Critics argue that it is racially discriminatory, as police statistically tend to view, and thus, target, non-whites as suspects in low-income, high-crime areas.

According to Paul Larkin, Senior Legal Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, established historic evidence shows that persons of color are more likely than whites to be detained, questioned, searched, and arrested by police. Larkin suggests that this happens more often in areas chosen for broken windows-based policing due to a combination of: the individual’s race, police officers being tempted to stop minority suspects because they statistically appear to commit more crimes, and the tacit approval of those practices by police officials.

How NYC championed broken windows policing and threw it away: Goodwin

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In the event the goon squad trashing New York and other cities puts me under a hot light and demands I say nice things about their “movement,” I’m ready. I will thank them for proving the righteousness of the “broken windows” theory of policing.

That wasn’t the aim, of course, but the mayhem unleashed by the marauders and quisling politicians ends the argument about whether James Q. Wilson and George Kelling got it right. The national disaster unfolding before our eyes validates their conclusions about human nature and common sense.

Wilson and Kelling introduced the idea that would revolutionize law enforcement in 1982 in The Atlantic magazine with this famous summary: “Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones.”

The implication was that public disorder and petty crimes — litter, graffiti, vandalism — would multiply if left uncontested and metas­tasize into robbery, rape and murder.

New York under Rudy Giuliani, elected mayor in 1993, and his police commissioners, starting with Bill Bratton, put the theory into practice. The resulting drops in crime of all kinds were so dramatic that cities across the country recruited New York commanders to bring the magic to their jurisdictions.

There was no magic. Rather, just as Thomas Edison described genius — 1 percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration — broken-windows policing involved an exhaustive attention to detail. Giuliani and Bratton talked about taking back the city “block by block” and, aided by developing technology, put NYPD precinct bosses on the spot by showing them what crimes had been committed, when and where.

Giuliani’s fixation on squeegee men was easy to ridicule and yet reflected the essence of the approach. The aggressive panhandlers trapped people in their cars and made them feel unsafe.

Former New York Police Commissioner Bill Bratton Chad Rachman / NY Post

In a memorable moment shortly before he was elected, Giuliani told an editorial-board meeting he cared about statistics, but the real measure would be whether people actually felt safer. That, he said, was the ultimate test of policing and political leadership.

He said that in 1993, when New York was averaging 2,000 murders a year. During the previous quarter century, as annual murders rose from 600 to more than 2,200 in 1990, not a single police commissioner had been fired because of bloodshed. So accountability would play a major role in the new policing.

Four years later, here’s how The New York Times reported the results for 1997: “The crime rate in New York City fell 9.1 percent last year, with murders dropping to their lowest level since 1967.”

New York public urination debate tests ‘broken windows’ theory of crime

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Originator of ‘broken windows’ policing theory says arrests should be ‘last resort’

New York, no longer the crime-infested Gotham it once was, still has little tolerance for anyone with a full bladder and an empty wallet.

In a city where free public restrooms are few and far between, many resort to relieving themselves in public.

«Sure, I’ve done it. I’ve done it here,» conceded Brooklyn resident Daniel Olivero, on a recent visit to McCarren Park, a hotspot for public urination citations. «When you have to do it, you have to do it.»

Although police have never caught Olivero in the act, the consequences could be severe. Public urination remains an arrestable act in New York.

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New York is weighing whether to decriminalize urinating in the streets, as many argue that the theory of criminology that gave rise to more aggressive policing on petty violations was built on leaky logic.

«Broken windows is analogous to putting a dirty Band-Aid on a flesh wound, without dealing with the root causes,» says Monifa Bandele, who sits on the steering committee for Communities United for Police Reform.

«When you push someone into the margins of society by repeating arrests for these low-level violations, that can have negative, collateral consequences for the community.»

The ‘broken windows’ model

Championed by former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, the broken windows model is based on the idea that cracking down on minor offences prevents the occurrence of more serious crimes.

These lower-level offences might include urinating in the streets, subway fare-beating, graffiti and unlicensed vending.

Together with New York police commissioner Bill Bratton, Giuliani instituted the broken windows model across the city in the 1990s.

During the mayor’s eight-year tenure, violent crime declined by more than 56 per cent, according to the non-profit U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research. Robberies fell by about 67 per cent.

With the tougher enforcement, however, came complaints of unlawful stop-and-frisks and police brutality.

Those who support the cessation of arrests for misdemeanours such as public urination argue that the sweeping enforcement approach of broken windows has lost relevance in a safer, more secure New York.

Under a city proposal, the criminal court summons would instead become civil charges subject to fines.

«Nobody wants their sidewalk or the elevator in their building to smell like urine, but there are 10 other types of strategies to try out instead of having an armed person approach someone and arrest them,» says Bandele.

«Yes, public urination is a quality-of-life concern, but what’s the solution? Is it maybe more public restrooms? Is it a huge housing crisis?»

Community activists not only believe that policing is the wrong approach, but worry it could have long-term consequences for the offender.

Tickets for such infractions can lead to warrants, Bandele said, which may prevent offenders from being accepted to college, or lead to them being jailed overnight and losing wages, jobs and housing.

Unintended consequences

Critics of broken windows argue that unforgiving policies against low-level violations pushes people into the criminal justice system.

Of particular concern is that it disproportionately targets blacks and Hispanics, and subjects minorities to unlawful stop-and-frisk scenarios.

One example critics point to is the death of Eric Garner, the black man who was allegedly put in a chokehold by an officer who stopped him for selling untaxed cigarettes in Long Island.

Amid the renewed debate, even the originator of the broken windows theory has concerns that it has been misinterpreted or misapplied over the decades.

George Kelling, the criminologist who coined the concept in a 1982 article with the late sociologist James Wilson, stressed that «arrests should be made as a last resort.»

Broken windows, he said, is not to be confused with a zero-tolerance approach.

«As we first conceived it, broken windows has always been highly discretionary,» Kelling said. «It’s good we’re having a public debate about it, and we should be reconsidering how we tackle problems that are different than the problems we had in the ’80s and the ’90s.»

As innocuous as public urination or the sale of loose cigarettes would seem to be, Kelling stopped short of recommending that New York decriminalize low-level offences.

«We don’t want to lose the capacity to deal with people who are literally saying they can piss anywhere they want,» he said.

‘No significant effect’ on major crimes

Complicating matters is research that suggests there’s little evidence the plummeting crime rate during Giuliani’s reign should be credited solely to broken windows.

George Mason University criminology professor David Weisburd says the best mechanism might not necessarily be arrests or stops, but simply deterrence or an increase in police operating in «sentinel roles» or patrolling certain neighbourhoods.

Economist Hope Corman, who teaches at Rider University in New Jersey and co-authored an analysis of the effect of misdemeanor arrests on felony crimes in the 1990s, said the arrests «had no significant effect on murder, burglaries, assaults or rapes.»

She noted that due to a stronger economy, the 1990s saw increases in the size of the police force of about 35 per cent from staffing lows in the 1980s.

The «decline in crack cocaine use, better policing, increased imprisonment and demographic shifts» may have also affected New York’s crime stats, she added.

Current Mayor Bill De Blasio promised to reform the stop-and-frisk program, which was ruled unconstitutional in 2013.

In the first quarter of this year, police stops have dropped to 7,000, or half the amount in the same period last year, although an auditor said some stops may have been underreported.

To Olivero, sitting in McCarren Park, broken windows will always be the policy that straightened up his city.

«Before Giuliani, it wasn’t very nice,» he said. «Giuliani cleaned it up.»

Nevertheless, Olivero supports decriminalizing minor infractions such as public urination.

«People are going to jail now for any little nonsense, and that’s not fair,» he said. «Their argument is you take care of the small crimes, you’ll take care of the big crimes. But how do we know that’s true all the time?»