Broken Window Policing Research Paper

Theory supporting Broken Windows policing as presented by Wilson, Kelling and Moore.

Broken window policing is a criminology theory put forward as an academic exercise in the 1982 by James Wilson and George Kelling. It was an attempt at reorientation of police patrol.

Disorderly conducts like public drunkenness, beggars, prostitutes are broken windows that send a message to criminal that no one is watching (citizen withdrawal), therefore no one would stop a criminal from mugging someone, dealing drugs or committing bigger crimes. Nipping disorderly conducts in the bud before bigger crime occurs is the basic model of this theory.

Moore (1992) adds "that the minor events and incivilities that frightened people, far from being a distraction for

police departments, should be identified as key targets of police action." (p. 138). James Wilson, George Kelling, and Mark Moore based this theory on the historical analysis and environmental experimentation of American policing. They called for a return to the days of traditional watchman style of policing.

Strengths of the theory
The theory simply states that, the best way to fight more serious crime is to fight the disorder that precedes it.

So, by searching for smaller crimes, such as vandalism, public drunkenness and littering, police could catch young troublemakers early, allowing them to realize the implications of illegal behavior while they are young, which may save them from making worse decisions in the future. Since this theory involve community partnership, communities may also develop programs and activities in which students and children can get involved to keep them off the streets.

With the implementation of the broken windows policing, city leaders and law enforcement can be focused on keeping communities safer and cleaner from all sorts of crimes, thereby providing for motivated community leadership. Furthermore, paying attention to the details of the neighborhood/environment can impact crime and fear of crime, thereby reducing crime rates. When this system was implemented in New York City in the 90s, crime rates was reportedly lower. Though crime generally was said to be on the decline nationwide.

Criticisms of Broken Windows policing as presented by Walker and

others
Walker argued that the most effective style of policing would have to be created; it cannot be found in our nation’s history as postulated by Wilson, Kelling, and Moore. Their (Wilson, Kelling, and Moore) advocating for the return to the days of traditional watchman style of policing was based on the police historical analysis that American police officers enjoyed a high degree of legitimacy in the eyes of urban neighborhood residents in the years before the arrival of the patrol car. Walker disputes this by stating that technological advances, specifically the patrol car (coupled with the telephone), actually led to police citizen contact becoming more intimate. Walker asserts that Wilson, Kelling, and Moore have misinterpreted police history in several important respects and that the most effective form of policing cannot be found in America’s past; it must be created.
Steve Herbert pointed to the lack of evidence indicating that broken windows policing reduces crime. He discusses the reasons why there has been no real reform in police agencies. He attributed this to the conflation of community policing and windows policing that has become popular but very unfortunate. This conflation means that little meaningful change will occur in police agencies despite lack of evidence that order maintenance policing reduces crime. However, despite lack of evidence that window policing works, it does fit comfortably with cultural and political models. According to Herbert, broken windows is associated with aggressive policing, which causes much undue harm to citizens, with inevitably tragic outcomes. In addition, broken windows lack the community oversight of policing.
Strecher's and Herbert's major theses regarding policing in contemporary American society.
Stretcher opines that the history on policing isn't very clear and the argument by Wilson and Moore is historically unsound and misleading. He asserts that if somebody misreads something from the past, it could distort "our understanding of the present and of correspondingly inappropriate policy recommendations for the future" He asserts that more community policing literature are being produced than the effort at implementing real community policing.
According to Herbert, there are two principal models that exist for reforming contemporary police departments: community policing and broken windows.

He argues, broken windows policing supplants community policing as the dominant reform movement, it sits well culturally and politically with considerable consequences for the operations and oversight of contemporary police departments.

Kraska's and Kappeler's major findings.

Police sexual violence (PSV), a rare focus of criminology study was at the center of Kraska's and Kappeler's work. The real significance for this study is that police officers as members of select group of persons, empowered to enforce state’s laws and protect citizens exploited their unique and exceptional access to female citizens and their power and authority as police to engage in violent sexual behavior.

PSV examined includes, invasion of privacy, strip and body cavity searches, sexual harassment and rape. Common elements identified on the police sexual violence continuum include the extreme power differential between police officers and female citizens. Another finding is the fact that sexist (masculine/aggressive) police culture constitutes a governing structural factor in sexual violence against female citizens. This study adds credibility to the well-established feminist insight, that violence against women is committed most often by those to whom women turn for

protection.

In light of recent events involving NYCPD, Ferguson, Dallas, and other departments around the nation, what parts, if any, of Broken Windows policing should be eliminated. Succinctly but comprehensively give your reasons.
It is high time that broken window policing strategy is jettisoned and be replaced with real community policing. Little evidence has been shown where broken window policing took roots that it’s worked as intended. A typical example is New York, where the new Mayor Bill de Blasio de-emphasized broken window policing (terminated stop and frisk). Yet the crime rate has not been shown to increase, if anything, it has reduced. The broken window theory has instead resulted in what critics say is aggressive over-policing of minority communities, which often creates more problems than it solves. For example, in New York in 2014, Eric Garner, an unarmed black man died from a police chokehold after officers approached him for selling loose cigarettes on a street corner.
Such practices can strain criminal justice systems, burden impoverished people with fines for minor offenses; a record that could hurt their prospects of getting into college or finding a job and destroy the relationship between police and minorities. Such policing method further polarizes the American society along ethnic lines. We now have such organization as “Black Lives Matter” that were hitherto unheard of.