Broken Windows Policing Is Still the Best Way to Fight Crime

If you’re familiar with the Broken Windows theory of policing, you may have learned of it, perhaps indirectly, from Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller The Tipping Point, published 25 years ago. In the book’s most-discussed chapter, Gladwell sought to explain why New York City, in the 1990s, suddenly experienced the greatest drop in violent crime ever recorded. True, other cities saw crime declines in this period, but nowhere else did crime plunge so significantly and so swiftly. In just a few years, New York went from being one of the most dangerous and frightening big cities in America to one of the safest. Why?

Gladwell surveyed various possibilities having to do with the economy, changing demographics, and the waning of the deadly crack trade, but found them unpersuasive. The real difference-maker, he said, was the NYPD’s commitment to Broken Windows policing—the disarmingly simple idea that serious crimes are more likely to occur in disorderly environments than orderly ones. By upgrading people’s surroundings, the theory says, you can improve their behavior.
— Read on www.city-journal.org/article/broken-windows-policing-crime-malcolm-gladwell