What proves the validity of the "broken window" method is how Rudy Giuliani drastically reduced crime in NYC. To cite just one minor but typical example. Many of the "homeless" and other street derelicts would force people to pay for such "services" as cleaning car windshields and making charity "donations". Previously such behaviour was ignored by law enforcement as simply "nuisance" activity. But Giuliani started arresting them and any others who were harassing the public. Guess what? Word quickly got around that there was a new mayor with a new policy called zero tolerance - and it worked on every level from the misdemeanors to the felonies!
The people who were arrested jumping turnstiles and panhandling were the same ones who weren't being caught for more serious crimes. Serious crime didn't drop because its perpetrators got the word, it dropped because its perpetrators were in jail.
Yep, first thing that I thought of, too. But see, that is exactly WHY scumbag Democrats like this author Daniel Brook and his ilk don't like the theory - - it is a REPUBLICAN theory that WORKS!
There is nothing the scumbag Democrats hate worse.
Regards,
LH
Nothing in this article addresses what I think is the major reason "broken window" policing is so effective. I think it works so well, not because it discourages the commission of more serious crimes in future, but because petty criminals have often committed more serious crimes in the past, or are in the process of doing so.
The thugs who jump turnstiles are also frequently the same ones who deal drugs, commit rapes, or burglarize buildings in the same neighborhood. They have a much higher likelihood of being in possession of drugs or being a wanted fugitive than the average man in the street.
Therefore, by stopping and searching litterbugs, jaywalkers, turnstile jumpers and other scofflaws, I submit that the police are in fact focusing their efforts where they are likely to do the most good.
A few days ago National Peoples Radio ran a puff piece on taggers and the mean policemen who try to catch them spraying graffiti on public and private property. Retro back to the urban art meme...betcha these smug reporters would have a different outlook if it was their Prius or Volvo getting trashed...any way allowing smaller crimes to go unpunished creates a petri dish for bigger crime.
This is true, but the crime reduction in New York during the Giuliani administration does not exactly fit the pattern that is supposed to occur under the "Broken Window Theory." Crime rates in New York City didn't decline simply because criminals were less likely to commit crimes in a "clean" environment than in a "derelict" environment (which is what the Broken Window Theory states). Major crime levels declined after the Giuliani administration cracked down on petty crime because having more criminals in the system made it easier to solve other crimes. Arresting a guy for jumping a turnstile gave the NYPD the opportunity to process him, fingerprint him, and have a permanent record of him in the system. This enabled the police to do two things: 1) check his fingerprints (and maybe his DNA) against evidence that had been gathered in other unsolved crimes, and 2) keep his fingerprints (and maybe his DNA) on file so that they could be used in the future to solve other crimes he may commit.