The Broken Windows Theory
I want to know if the “Broken Windows” theory as well as community policing works as it has been tested. This theory struck an interest to me since my father lives in Newark, NJ where this study was so popular at. I wanted to research this theory and get a nice understanding of it so that while in Newark I can recognize the style of policing in progress. If it does work than I would like to know why it works or which aspects work better than others. The same as the opposition, if it is not effective I would like to know find out why it does not or which aspects of the theory do not work.
Almost a decade after the the publication of the Broken Windows article, New York’s mayor hired their new police commissioner William Bratton. He first established …show more content…
Keeling and Wilson were the first to come up with the Broken Windows theory. The theory was about the role community policing and neighborhood disorder and incivilities had on the rate of criminal offending in an area. They wanted the police to go back to their “historical responsibility” of maintaining order (Jenkins, 2016). During their studies they had six different implications stated as such: “Disorder and fear of crime are strongly linked, police negotiate rules of the street. Street people are involved in the negotiation of those rules, different neighborhoods have different rules, untended disorder leads to the breakdown of community controls, areas where community controls break down are vulnerable to criminal invasion, the essence of the police role in maintaining order is to reinforce the informal control mechanisms of the community itself, problems arise not so much from individual disorderly persons as it does from the congregation of large numbers of disorderly persons, and, different neighborhoods have different capacities to manage disorder” (Jenkins, 2016, pg. …show more content…
They study started off saying that there wasn’t a high impact on fear of crime from broken windows policing (Weisburd, et. alt., 2015). Although this was said, it is also noted that the evidence is not very persuasive (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). One point that was said to be discovered during this study was, that police cracking down heavily on the petty crimes actually increases fear with the community rather than eliminate fear (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). My take from that is unsure due to the lack of information about how the police conducted their patrol. If it was patrolling done in a cruiser then that makes citizens feel as if something is wrong, rather than foot patrol as proven with earlier studies. One suggestion made was to not crack down on crimes such as prostitution, and distribution of drugs, but rather loitering, P.I.s, and disorderly conduct (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). There should be a heavier focus on disorder rather than crime when conducted the broken windows method (Weisburd, et. Atl., 2015). This seems to be a tad bit different than most of the other studies since it doesn’t include prostitution and the sales of drugs. The study didn’t find a great amount of evidence showing that broken windows policing works to decline the crime rates in certain areas (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). This study says that incarceration, deterrence, and other factors
Almost a decade after the the publication of the Broken Windows article, New York’s mayor hired their new police commissioner William Bratton. He first established …show more content…
Keeling and Wilson were the first to come up with the Broken Windows theory. The theory was about the role community policing and neighborhood disorder and incivilities had on the rate of criminal offending in an area. They wanted the police to go back to their “historical responsibility” of maintaining order (Jenkins, 2016). During their studies they had six different implications stated as such: “Disorder and fear of crime are strongly linked, police negotiate rules of the street. Street people are involved in the negotiation of those rules, different neighborhoods have different rules, untended disorder leads to the breakdown of community controls, areas where community controls break down are vulnerable to criminal invasion, the essence of the police role in maintaining order is to reinforce the informal control mechanisms of the community itself, problems arise not so much from individual disorderly persons as it does from the congregation of large numbers of disorderly persons, and, different neighborhoods have different capacities to manage disorder” (Jenkins, 2016, pg. …show more content…
They study started off saying that there wasn’t a high impact on fear of crime from broken windows policing (Weisburd, et. alt., 2015). Although this was said, it is also noted that the evidence is not very persuasive (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). One point that was said to be discovered during this study was, that police cracking down heavily on the petty crimes actually increases fear with the community rather than eliminate fear (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). My take from that is unsure due to the lack of information about how the police conducted their patrol. If it was patrolling done in a cruiser then that makes citizens feel as if something is wrong, rather than foot patrol as proven with earlier studies. One suggestion made was to not crack down on crimes such as prostitution, and distribution of drugs, but rather loitering, P.I.s, and disorderly conduct (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). There should be a heavier focus on disorder rather than crime when conducted the broken windows method (Weisburd, et. Atl., 2015). This seems to be a tad bit different than most of the other studies since it doesn’t include prostitution and the sales of drugs. The study didn’t find a great amount of evidence showing that broken windows policing works to decline the crime rates in certain areas (Weisburd, et. Alt., 2015). This study says that incarceration, deterrence, and other factors