Broken Windows—Pulling the Loose Thread of Civilization

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by Bill Formby

I have been working in the field of criminal justice for over fifty years as a police officer, professor, researcher, and consultant. I have worked with police departments literally all over America from San Jose to Hartford to Birmingham to North Carolina to Oklahoma to Peoria and back to Birmingham and Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I don’t know that I have ever seen any theory bastardized more than that of “Broken Windows” in my life.

It was, after all, a very simple theory tested under fairly simple circumstances and very few people simply took it at face value. It has been applied to kids’ behavior in schools too, how people park their cars in neighborhoods with only the last one even coming close to its true findings. Simply put Wilson and Kelling first put a car into a neighborhood and left it to sit there, It sat there virtually unmolested until they broke a window in it. After the window was broken it was as if it was a signal that no one care and soon after the car was stripped of almost all of its parts.

They purchased a vacant house and did the same thing. A fairly decent neighborhood then a window is broken then the house was vandalized and soon drugs were being sold out of the house and then the neighborhood itself began to deteriorate. The message was fairly clear. Once you let any part of the neighborhood go down soon it will pull the entire neighborhood down. So what does this have to do with policing?

In two of the cities, Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, we decided to test this. The chiefs in both cities assigned officers to high crime areas who were given instructions to clean the areas up by towing broken down cars that were sitting on the streets, ticketing the owners of houses the were not up to code, ticketing the residents whose yards were like junkyards, and etc. In other words, clean up those neighborhoods. The residents and rental owners were given 30 days to clean up those specific neighborhoods.

As soon as the neighborhoods were cleaned up crime prevention officers set up neighborhood watches with the residents. In the first sixty days crime in those neighborhoods dropped by more the 50%. So what happened? Because it was literally labor-intensive people began to complain to the mayor and the city council. It was costing more for the slum lords to keep up their rentals, police officers were complaining because they were doing more babysitting [the neighborhoods] than what they view as policing, and to some degree, people felt that the cities were running their lives.

The program allowed people to park their cars on the streets again and in their yards, there were more junk cars appearing as a result. The yards were becoming more trashy again. People began gathering outside in the street and drug buys were prevalent. Prostitutes once again worked the streets. In short, it went back to what it once was. There is no question that the theory behind broken windows was sound but do people want to live under those conditions. It takes a majority of the people in a given area to want to live in an area that repels crime and criminal behavior, or it takes a very strong-willed city government to force that on the people in order for it to work. That either becomes essentially a dictatorship or a well-funded city that can afford to keep the city clean.

This follows very closely with Mr. Hirschi’s theory of creating a strong social bond between children, families, and the community where all hold close to the same values. This can be seen more in some European, Scandinavian, and Asian countries that have little to no immigration. The values and cultures have been the same for hundreds of years. America is still building its cultures and as a young country has not yet developed its true identity yet. Right now America is still what one would call a mixed bag of values and cultures that have yet to blend. In other words, mongrels. When the few principles we do have are allowed to be shaken or seriously questioned the entire concept of the Republic is questioned.

For example, one of America’s most basic principles has been that all people are created equal and that no one is better than anyone else. That has been shaken to its core lately by Mr. Trump. But even before him, the mistreatment of black citizens by white citizens and particularly by white law enforcement officers continues. Of course, this is not everyone, but it is done by enough of the population, the very nature of the act itself has thrown this basic principle out of balance. It has called into question the foundation of the so-called democracy we claim to have.

This is especially true when the people in power laugh at any suggestion that every person is equal in all ways and entitled to equal treatment before the law even as we all admit that this is not true. It is not true that we all must love one another and want to take warm showers together in the wee hours of the morning, but, in order to exist as a unified nation, it is necessary that we all respect each other’s right to live and exist in somewhat of a harmonious manner without fear of one another.

The mere fact that a group of city leaders has given up on one of the founding principles of the Anglo-Saxon way of life is ridiculous. It is, as James Q. Wilson pointed out, a loose thread of the sweater of civilization that is pulled, and all of civilization is slowly coming unraveled. Much of this is due to the fact that we have let Trump trample on many of our founding principles as if they were mere eggshells not worthy of saving.  Perhaps they are not.

I would suggest that in constructing this experimental government the founders could not see far enough into the future and could only perceive a nation of European descendants. That the perhaps millions of descendants of African and Chinese ancestry would never come to live on these lands and that the Hispanics would be satisfied with the land we had given them. Perhaps they were wrong in thinking that their descendants would always be fair and decent people. Then they were wrong, very wrong because many of their descendants are miserable, foul, downright ugly people who care only for themselves and not for the good of their nation at all.

I pity our descendants.

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About Post Author

Bill Formby

Bill Formby, aka William A. Formby, PhD, aka Lazersedge is a former Marine and a former police officer. He is a retired University Educator who considers himself a moderate pragmatic progressive liberal, meaning that he thinks practically liberal, acts practically liberal, and he is not going to change in the near future. But, if he does he will be sure to let you know.
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Glenn Geist
3 years ago

We used to talk about “christian lives” as though they were more valuable and act as though they were. Of course Christianity and the promise of reward allowed them to justify slavery and genocide to the victims thereof. Likewise I cringe at the term “black lives” For someone who sees no hierarchy to human life to be called racist for that alienates me irrevocably.

Glenn Geist
3 years ago

I have been unaware of that experiment. I find it very depressing and I’ve long been depressed about human nature as it is.

I think, from reading Jefferson, that he wanted the native peoples to be able to enjoy the fruits of European science and civilization and give up what he saw ironically, as “savagery” but nobody can predict the future so far in advance and nothing involving humans can fail to stray from any course that seems so clear and direct. He also famously feared divine retribution – at least metaphorically speaking – for the evil of slavery. In that he was right. This may be our Ezekiel moment.

Is it ironic that had we not gained independence, slavery might have ended a generation earlier in 1833?

Bill Formby
Reply to  Glenn Geist
3 years ago

Glenn, You make an interesting point. This modern version of Europeans are not unique in their xenophobia for it seems it has existed with every wave of new immigrants that arrived here from the old world. While there seemed to be some hope or perhaps intent that the natives of this land would give up their savagery it was not to be by their choice. I may be wrong but here in the new world the treatment of the slaves and the native Americans may have led to placing very little value on human life. Especially the lives of those who were seen as a lower breeding than that of the major European groups.

Admin
3 years ago

I see Broken Windows as an important step to community-oriented policing. For example where there is a neighborhood that is rundown, much as you describe, the police, with the permission of and hopefully the help of those who live in that neighborhood, will come in, off duty, and help to clean it up. That way C.O.P can be launched in the inner cities, earning the goodwill of the residents, and reducing crime by making abandoned, rundown neighborhoods well.

Bill Formby
Reply to  Professor Mike
3 years ago

That’s right, but it is usually the good people of the community that will work with the police. The problems come in with the thugs and bad actors who are not crazy about the cops coming into the community and getting friendly with the people in the community. Then you have people like Trump who benefit from keeping people divided so they stay at each others throats. If people ever got together and honestly started talking and comparing notes people like Trump would probably get run out of office. That is why they keep so much secret stuff.

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