Broken Windows Theory

Few academic theories have garnered as much attention from such a diverse audience as has broken windows theory. Supporters and critics of the theory include attorneys, politicians, police, scholars, journalists, and representatives of myriad other disciplines. When introduced, it was a simple, elegant theory that held great promise. That promise was to accomplish what no previous theory had accomplished: to bring down soaring crime rates. James Q. Wilson and George Kelling used broken windows as a metaphor for disorder within neighborhoods. Their theory links disorder and incivility within a community to subsequent occurrences of serious crime.

Broken windows theory had an enormous impact on police policy throughout the 1990s and will remain influential. Perhaps the most notable application of the theory was in New York City under the direction of Police Commissioner William Bratton. He and many others are convinced that the aggressive order-maintenance practices of the New York Police Department were responsible for the dramatic decrease in [Page 128]crime rates within the city during the 1990s. Bratton began translating the theory into practice as the Chief of New York City's transit police from 1990 to 1992. He saw fare evasion as the “biggest broken window in the transit system” (Bratton and Knobler 1998). Squads of plainclothes officers were assigned to catch turnstile jumpers. They soon discovered that many of these fare evaders were carrying illegal weapons or had outstanding arrest warrants. As arrests for misdemeanors increased, subway crimes of all kinds decreased dramatically. In 1994, when he became New York City Police Commissioner, Bratton introduced his broken windows–based “quality of life initiative.” This initiative cracked down on panhandling, disorderly behavior, public drinking, street prostitution, and unsolicited windshield washing by “squeegee people.” The quality of life initiative, combined with other innovative policies, was credited with reducing felonies by 27 percent in the first two years.