A civilized society is governed by rules on acceptable behaviors and the police are tasked with enforcing those rules. Our sense of safety is closely tied to our individual perceptions of the likelihood of victimization. How do we instill a sense of law and order in areas that suffer from high crime? James Q. Wilson and George Kelling (1982) proposed Broken Windows theory as a way of addressing the visible signs of societal disorder and decay. By cracking down on petty crimes, police would be addressing the behavior that leads to more serious offenses.
Fundamentally, Broken Windows policing is about increasing public safety in a community by discouraging unacceptable behaviors with punitive consequences. While some of the mismanaged strategies and abusive tactics used in the deployment implementation of this policy are well-documented, ideally, when combined with discretion and social service supports, the positive effects of good broken-window policing are undeniable. One doesn't have to look much further than New York in the 1990s.
Broken Windows and other crime prevention policies were seen as a much needed, tough-on-crime stance in response to high incidents of violent crime in the 1980s and early 1990s. The heavy-handed policies that emerged led to the overuse of Stop, Question, and Frisk and zero-tolerance approaches to arresting offenders. When crime dropped, there was still a push by police executives for more stops, more traffic enforcement, and more arrests for crime. Why? The fear was if law enforcement decreased their efforts, crime would increase, which is a public safety failure. The constant pressure to beat last week's numbers was real. It became a numbers game for the sake of numbers that ensnared many young New Yorkers of color into a trap. This push-pull kept some policies and police leadership in place longer than it should.
Critics of Broken Windows policing note that these policies created generations of people with criminal records caught in a cycle of seemingly perpetual penal supervision (i.e., incarceration, parole, or probation). Those entering the criminal justice system as a result of Broken Windows policing were typically poorer individuals, with mental illness, and disproportionately Black and Hispanic. But the bottom line is that communities of color want more police and not less. These communities have a disproportionate number of crime victims and arrestees. In NYC, 90 percent of all murder victims are Black or Hispanic and 92 percent of arrestees are Black or Hispanic. The question is, how can the police still reduce violence without creating a racial disparity in arrests? The answer is, they can't. Why do activists that don't live in the high crime areas, continue to insist on policies that affect those that do? It's a question that needs an answer.
In 1990, NYC recorded 2,245 homicides and by 2017 there were fewer than 300. Think for a moment how many New Yorkers are alive today because of that drop. Policing wasn't the sole reason why the murders dropped, but it played a major role in it. The reason why today's activists have little appreciation for the crime reduction efforts of decades ago is because of the high-profile instances of excessive police force, questionable police shootings, and rising anti-police sentiment. It is also partly driven by how law enforcement viewed data collection, analysis, and transparency. The NYPD didn't cast a big enough data net to evaluate the complex, multi-causal contributors to crime. While precinct commanders in the early 1990s lauded the benefit of Broken Windows policing at every opportunity, they did not build into their policies the necessary throttling mechanisms to adjust street-level policing as crime decreased or evolved.
Broken Windows is about creating an infrastructure in a community where normative behavior is reinforced with deterrence. A criminal should never feel comfortable enough to victimize a community. That sense of impunity, that brazen expectation of entitlement (for a myriad of self-actualized reasons) is seminal to a person engaging in criminal behavior. You would never walk through your grandma's kitchen with dirty shoes. Why? It comes down to respect. You would take your shoes off. Why? Respect. Fundamentally, Broken Windows was about enforcing a culture of respect. That is where law enforcement agencies failed. They did a poor job communicating this powerful message.
But while police are a key component of public safety, they are not the only stakeholders. Unfortunately, arresting someone is more emblematic of a cascade of failures that should have been addressed as trip wires and safety nets along their course in life. Job services, education, childcare, infrastructure, health care, and mental health crisis response mechanisms should have been folded into a Broken Windows strategy long ago. We haven't seen that today because it would require a fundamental change in governance and budgetary expenditure for this to work properly. Initially, this strategy raises concerns of a police state or a nanny government. With poor governance and community apathy, it can be. However, if properly managed and implemented, communities should see a reduction in police services and police-community interactions, because we would eventually reach a point where communities will be closer to policing themselves.
Think about a Broken Windows strategy with the aforementioned built-in mechanisms, with the ability to easily pivot and adjust when the data-driven analytics demonstrate a potential for deleterious impact. Other than medical data or other vital (i.e., personal protected) information, the resulting programmatic data would be public data. We must address the current criminal justice crisis that is growing in America where there are few consequences for criminal behavior. Smash-and-grabs are now met with catch-and-release. How much longer before the "catching" component of that equation disappears? What about the health of small businesses that lose inventory from chronic petty theft? What happens in a society that turns a blind eye these lower-level crimes? Once that is gone, we're just steps away from vigilantism to ensure public safety and we've come too far for that.
Dr. Christopher Mercado is a retired NYPD lieutenant and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
Joseph L. Giacalone is a retired NYPD sergeant SDS (Supervisor Detective Squad) and adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
The views expressed in this article are the writers' own.
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