Posted on 08/03/2014 4:01:23 PM PDT by jimbo123
Is broken windows broken? Yes It subjects minority and poor New Yorkers to harassment for no good reason.
While Eric Garner's tragic death in police custody, ruled a homicide Friday by the city's medical examiner, has prompted inquiries into police use of force and chokeholds, his passing should also compel a larger investigation into why the police felt compelled to arrest Garner, who they've said was selling loose cigarettes, in the first place.
That inquiry must start by looking with fresh, long-overdue skepticism at the signature "broken windows" theory that's supposedly one of the hallmarks of the city's crime decline.
Given the tremendous, mostly positive publicity it has engendered, it is surprising to many that this heralded theory of policing is a five-page essay published in The Atlantic in 1982. The article's theme is that untended minor criminal behavior leads inexorably to serious street crime. One broken window left unaddressed will soon yield a building filled with broken windows. As the authors famously wrote, "[T]he unchecked panhandler is, in effect, the first broken window."
Serious crime has decreased dramatically in New York City in the two decades that broken windows policing has been in force, yet the causal connection between that drop and huge numbers of arrests for minor transgressions is unproven to this day.
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
Thank God for the real men who founded this country,
and for the real men who continue to sustain it
Please join the 300 by donating $100
Better to be robbed and raped by a minority, than to be judged by a caucasion.
Who's running that city anyway? Probably a bunch of white, male, right-wing wacko, Sarah Palin worshippin', Bible-thumpin' Dittoheads.
Every generation an idiot arises and tells people the way that worked didn’t work.
The author of the article seems to be confusing two different policies: “broken windows” and “stop and frisk”. The “broken windows” policy has been extremely successful since the Guliani days, from what I understand, but “stop and frisk” sounds blatantly unconstitutional. Unless the police have probable cause or a warrant, stopping someone on the street (who is not on probation or some other such special condition) to frisk them is police state type stuff. It may work, but the trade-off is not worth it.
- Back to NYC Mayor Davy Dinky’s 2200 murders in NYC a year...
There is a silver lining to this train of thought. Just think of the exciting movies from the 70’s that featured NYC, like Taxi Driver, Death Wish, etc. We could be looking at some more contemporary action thrillers from the Big Apple in the next 10 years. On a more selfish side, I’m thinking of the increase in my property value a few miles to the west of the Hudson River. When the Bronx is Burning returns, the hipsters will be fleeing in droves, thus driving up demand for housing in the suburbs. I could see my split level reach seven figures if DeBlasio runs the place into the ground. What Lindsey and Beame did for my parents, DeBlasio could do for me.
And let’s just let people break windows, do graffiti, sell drugs, sell whores, litter, and let homeless do #1 and #2 wherever they want, and sleep where ever they want. All of this to prove how liberal and tolerant we are. Unfortunately, that’s the logical end point of liberal polices. Literally stepping in people and waste and having the worst of human behavior in our faces all the time. All to prove that we are liberal and non-judgemental.
I remember NYC in the 70s. Hard to believe anyone thinks that an “anything goes” policy is good sense. But these are Liberals, so they’re not focused on any practical outcome. It’s all about how it makes them feel about themselves.
As I stated above, what you accurately prophesy will be a bonanza for us homeowners in the NY suburbs. I do not see it as negative, I see housing prices skyrocketing in places like Bergen, Westchester, Rockland, and Fairfield Counties. A three bedroom ranch will be seven figures when the fleeing hipsters rush across the bridges. If I could, I would vote to re-elect DeBlasio for life, out of selfish reasons mind you.
They've arrested the guy who shot the video.
The CUNY Prof who wrote this flippantly refers to the theory of broken windows as no more than some 5 page essay in the Atlantic. Just so happens that essay was written by James Q Wilson whose knowledge and understanding of modern policing is the foundation for most all of the strategy and tactics of the modern urban force. And he claims there is no evidence that broken windows is responsible for the remarkable decrease in NYC crime, yet he provides no alternate explanation.
Oh, so you've been to San Francisco.
How many of this group actually go to work every day?
Good response to this opinion piece by Michael Jenkins in the same issue of the Daily News.
My first experience in NYC was in 1973. A friend from grad school at North Carolina drove me up up to NYC to visit some friends from college. I asked him to go through Harlem. It was a war zone. Burned out cars, broken windows, trash everywhere. Having grown up in a southern Wisconsin farm town it was a place I could not understand.
Broken windows doesn’t subject anybody to harassment. Broken windows don’t ignore the small crimes that stack up and lead to a lawless area. Now dickhead cops could be using broken windows as their excuse, but that’s the theory’s fault.
his crime wasn’t selling cigarettes...it was resisting arrest and endagering police officers.
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