Article Summary: The Broken Windows Theory Of Crime

In the article, “Is Broken Windows a Broken Theory of Crime?” Kevin Drum defines the Broken Windows Theory as a theory which “suggests that tolerance of small acts of disorder creates an environment that leads to rising amounts of serious crime. So if police crack down on small offenses – petty vandalism, public lewdness, etc. – crime reductions will follow” Though this theory has been around for a long time, it is still not a sound theory of crime. The Broken Windows theory is not a sound theory of crime because during the administration of President Reagan, he declared a war on drugs. During this time in the war on drugs, “the Supreme Court’s 1968 Terry v. Ohio decision established the “reasonable suspicion” threshold for stopping and questioning”

Although the six field experiments done by Kees Keizer and his colleagues did not show that those who committed the crime that were “artificially created” (Kelling and Bratton) were white individuals, the experiment done by Zimbardo did. Zimbardo arranged two automobiles without license plates with its hood up. One on a street in Bronx, New York and one in Palo Alto, California. The car in Bronx was vandalized within ten minutes of being set-up to be “abandoned.” Most of those who vandalized the car were “well-dressed, apparently clean-cut whites” (Wilson and Kelling, “Broken Windows”). The car that was placed in Palo Alto was untouched for more than a week. Zimbardo then smashed part of the car with a sledgehammer. The results were that, “soon passersby… [Had] join[ed] in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. Again, the “vandals” appeared to be primarily respectable whites” (Wilson and Kelling). Many individuals are so readily to believe that those who commit crime or deal drugs are African Americans and/ or Latinos. Michelle Alexander points out in the third chapter of her book, The New Jim Crow, that the media plays a role in displaying what ‘the black drug dealer’ looks like which reflects and reinforce biases, whether they’re conscious or

In addition, Harcourt saw many contributions to the fall in crime instead of the theory such as: changes in demographics, increased incarceration, larger New York Police Department, and changes in drug consumption (Selby, “Empirical Critique 2: Policing”). Drum and Harcourt state similar thoughts such as Drum’s two charts displaying that “crime went up more in big cities vs. small cities during the crime wave of the 60s through the 80s, and it then went down more during the crime decline of the 90s and aughts” (Drum, “Is Broken Windows a Broken Theory of Crime?”) Similarly, Harcourt examines the statistics of Chicago’s anti-loitering law and Charleston’s snitching policy. Both resulted in evidence that does not support the Broken Windows theory because in the case of Chicago’s anti-loitering law, results show an increase in gang crime such as homicides and drug trafficking following the ordinance, a drop in gang homicides a year after the end of the ordinance, and a drop in violent offenses in