Its curtains for broken window theory

It had to come. Via Planetizen, news of the inevitable research which disproves broken window theory. The jokes about crack have already been made. A study by Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig, reported in University of Chicago Law Review, apparently demonstrates that the declines in crime observed in New York City in the 1990s are exactly what experts would have predicted from the rise and fall of the crack epidemic, with or without broken-windows policing initiatives.

“The results are clear, though disappointing,” noted Harcourt. “Neighborhood disorder does not seem to have an effect on criminal behavior.”

Three quick thoughts (before I read the article, sometime next week). First, won't it be just great if we now have opposition politicians all over the place saying, ok stop wasting resources on repairing things in run-down areas? Secondly, I don't suppose it's possible someone has given the theory a tad too much emphasis, in policy, have they? Like, implying that it subtitutes for or even constitutes a comprehensive approach to community safety, policing and criminal justice?

Thirdly, could it depend on how we articulate the theory? If you formulate it as cracking down on minor crime in order to deter more serious crimes, then this conclusion is not exactly gobsmacking is it? I've always thought that broken window theory, if understood as keeping 'disorder' to a minimum so as to promote pro-social behaviour, is pretty much common sense and something that any self-respecting community development worker would tell you for free. OK maybe not for free but not requiring the full torture chamber.

It's called broken windows theory, not window-breaking. If the research contradicts this convincingly, I'll have some serious thinking to do.

Comments

[Richard Layman]

I haven't read this article yet, but as a practitioner, I find a lot of the articles written about this topic to be wanting in terms of the research. I think that Randy Stoecker makes some good points about the difficulty of traditional academic research methods in defining problems and generating useful results. (His book is published by Sage and there are a couple downloadable chapters.)

Anyway, RAND Corp. has done some research that I think demonstrates the soundness of broken windows vis-a-vis the "community efficacy" work which is looked upon as a counter approach but I really think of the two as necessarily complementary.

See "Urban Health, Nasty Cities, Broken Windows, and Community Efficacy" in the April 2005 archive of my blog;
-- "More confirmation of the Broken Windows thesis" in the July archive; and
-- "Detroit neighborhood demonstrates that "Broken windows" theory +..." also from July for more--if you're interested. I've written a lot more about this...

Similarly, I find links to squalor and crime, definitely, in the city of Washington, even though I have not studied it to the level of robustness necessary for a journal article. See for example "Squalor is the disease, I'm the cure (part one)" from April 2006 about what I believe to be deliberate squalor-promotion practices designed to support land assemblage at good prices...