Broken Windows Policing is the Disorder
Definitions:
Collective efficacy: activating or converting social tires within a neighborhood to achieve collective goals (e.g., control of crime)
Understanding how we arrived at zero-tolerance policy policing and the consequences of those policies can create a better perspective of why they were doomed from the start.
In 1982, George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson took to an issue of the Atlantic Monthly to warn communities of the devastating effects of urban decay and to propose their solution to the criminal activity which resulted from it. 40 years later, police departments across the United States continue enforcing policies, programs, and strategies born from Kelling and Wilson’s broken window theory. The implementation of the broken windows theory into policing has led to damaging, traumatic, and sometimes fatal consequences for communities of color especially.
The deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown by police are two of the more publicly scrutinized cases of potential broken windows policing strategies resulting in (fatal) police brutality. Garner was killed from an officer’s use of a chokehold after he was apprehended for selling untaxed cigarettes. Brown was shot and killed by an officer who involved himself with Brown only to tell Brown and his friend to use the sidewalk rather than walking in the street. Many have argued that the aggressive focus on minor offenses which broken windows policing requires are to blame for the deaths of Garner and Brown, will continue to be a death sentence for many Black Americans.
The various approaches to broken windows theory have contributed to racial profiling, over-policing and the criminalization of marginalized neighborhoods. These direct results create a ripple effect leading to collateral consequences for residents of arrest and incarceration, loss of integrity in the police department and strained relationships within the community. Kelling and Wilson generated a revolution in policing in the United States causing many agencies to adopt aggressive “zero tolerance” strategies focusing on minor misdemeanor laws.
The article, “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety” cautioned communities of their literal and metaphorical windows shattered and bound to multiply by instability and a shift in policing. The article begins with the authors’ feelings of importance for police officer foot-patrol to maintain an “order-maintenance” function noting that an overlooked source of fear is “being bothered by disorderly people.”
Defining disorderly people not as necessarily violent or “criminal” but as disreputable, obstreperous, or unpredictable – specifically “panhandlers, drunks, addicts, rowdy teenagers, prostitutes, loiterers, the mentally disturbed.” The article recommends police officers enforcing rules which have been collaboratively defined with “regulars” on the street, suggesting a version of collective efficacy involving the police.
Basing the broken window theory on Philip Zimbardo’s (misconstrued) abandoned car study, Kelling and Wilson argued lowered obligations of civility signal apathy towards residents and a disintegration of community controls. This suggests the lack of informal social control leaves the area vulnerable to crime or at the very least the appearance of criminal activity to which individuals will alter their behavior accordingly. Kelling and Wilson ask the reader to assume the groundwork for their theory, with little empirical evidence other than Zimbardo’s vandalism experiment. A criticism the authors’ have faced by many including Zimbardo himself.
Kelling and Wilson questioned whether police activity should be modeled based on standards of the neighborhood or rules set by the state, their opinion being police are to play the role of maintaining order by reinforcing the “informal control mechanisms of the community…” They specifically mention how they view law enforcement’s increased legal restrictions as a constraint on police in their ability to enforce informal controls. Referencing gang-related crimes, of which they explain only a tiny fraction can be solved by arrest, the solution is to chase the gang members out of the “project”, quoting an officer as having said “We kick ass.” They recommend allocating patrol, based on the look of the neighborhood and “first-hand” evidence claiming police know the “most important requirement” of their job is maintaining order in “precarious situations.”
The article contained logical inconsistency and left off with puzzling narratives. The article spends paragraphs warning about the potentially disastrous results of fear of crime and disorder while invoking that very same fear of disorder and recommending a solution steeped in fear of authority figures.
Broken windows theory seems concerned with the appearance of deterioration in communities and the residents who, according to Kelling and Wilson, suffer from the crime which may result from it. Though in their writing they never questioned or addressed why the windows were broken in the first place. Instead, an emphasis is placed on removing the “broken windows” (e.g., panhandlers, addicts, graffiti, loiterers) from view through the method of social control. Social control is the capacity of institutions and/or social groups to produce effective norms or rules.
Kelling and Wilson seemed to understand the racial implications of addressing social disorganization strictly through order-maintenance. They offered only “hope” that police persisted with an attitude limited by their “discretionary authority” – that their existence was to regulate behavior, “not to maintain the racial or ethnic purity of a neighborhood.” That optimism, or rather, apathy, contributed significantly to bias-based policing practices. Most notably, the stop-and-frisk program instituted by the New York City Police Department (NYPD) which at its height in 2011 recorded 685,724 stops by police. From those stops, 54% (315,083) of the individuals were Black, 33% (189,326) Latinx, and 9% (54,810) white. 88% (605,328) of the individuals stopped in 2011 were found to be completely innocent.
Kelling has argued that because broken windows policing tends to focus on minor offenses which most often result in fines or jail, it has not contributed to the disproportionately high arrest and incarceration rates of “African-Americans and other minorities.” This ignores the evidence that Black and Latino people are more often victims of bias-based policing, with the risks of encounters increasing in areas where “order-maintenance” or “zero-tolerance” policies are implemented.
It also ignores the direct and collateral consequences faced by individuals arrested even for the most minor of offenses. With a twenty-four hour arrest and potentially additional arraignment times, the individual typically risks missing work or school. Whether directly fined through ticketing or taxed through means of loss of work hours, loss of employment, inability to care for children (e.g., take to school), an “endless and varied” list, individuals arrested on minor offenses face difficulties which inhibit the ability to get ahead in society.
Taking the theory buried beneath broken windows policing seriously means repairing the metaphorical (and literal) windows (e.g., facilitating repairs in public housing, improving/implementing after school programs in underserved communities). Kelling and Wilson acknowledge underlying issues of disorder should be addressed by entities other than the police – “agencies other than the police could attend to the problems … but in most communities especially where the “deinstitutionalization” movement has been strong- they do not.”
By providing for communities through building up the social and economic factors, residents will be provided more opportunities for collective efficacy and creating social bonds.
Often, conventional values in inner-city neighborhoods are not rejected, but instead are “disused.” For instance, encouraging a child to stay in school and attend college loses effectiveness if the child rarely encounters neighbors who achieved success via this path. Therefore, providing educational opportunities and substantial employment options in the area create visibly present and community shared conventional values. As residents are able to live out conventional values, community structure is strengthened and social bonds are able to form properly. Ensuring students remain in school decreases the likelihood of future incarceration by 16%. Supporting the social and emotional well-being of students has shown to reduce total arrests by 35%, arrests for violent crimes by 50%, and recidivism in juvenile detention facilities by 21%.
Better informal social control can be provided through residents and organizations within communities. One study noted a 9% decrease in homicide rate, 6% reduction in violent crime rate, and 4% drop in property crime rate for every 10 additional crime and community focused organizations within cities. Significant decreases in violent crime have been achieved through neighborhood improvement projects especially in the areas most disadvantaged. In New York City, upgrading streetlights demonstrated a reduction in several crimes including murder, robbery, aggravated assault, and some property crimes.
Medicaid expansions reduced crime by 3%, significantly reducing robbery, aggravated assaults, and larceny resulting in $13 billion of crime-related cost savings per year . An increased use of substance use disorder treatment through Medicaid coverage is suspected to carry much of the responsibility. Providing substance-abuse-treatment facilities has also proved to result in reductions in violent and financially motivated crimes. Increasing access to affordable housing results in significant reductions in violent crime, along with reducing socio-economic segregation of neighborhoods.
The disorder described by Kelling and Wilson is a systemic issue handed out through various avenues of the state. The state provided insecurities (i.e., broken windows) must be repaired if we wish to ensure a better, more secure life for all. Criminalizing and policing the results of government neglect only continues the loss of human rights and human life.