Policing- Broken windows philosophy. What do you think?
Justin Peters: Shattering the ‘broken windows’ theory of policing | National Post
Broken windows policing is back in New York City, and it may have killed Eric Garner. “Broken windows” is an order-maintenance strategy that encourages cops to enforce quality-of-life laws on the grounds that, essentially, nits breed lice. It presumes that a disorderly environment where small laws are broken with impunity leads to bigger problems. This is the mindset that led the police to approach Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes: loose cigarettes today, civil unrest tomorrow.
Though NYPD commissioner William Bratton is a big proponent of broken windows policing, there’s no evidence that the policy is effective in reducing violent crime. At the same time, the effects of order-maintenance policing are felt disproportionately by members of minority groups. In August, responding to critics’ claims that these policies unfairly target people of colour, Bratton told The Associated Press that “it’s not an intentional focus on minorities. It’s a focus on behaviour.” Bratton added, “We are not a racist organization — not at all.”
Maybe Bratton is right. But even if broken windows isn’t explicitly racist, it’s inherently classist, and the two are close enough as to be functionally indistinguishable.
The broken windows theory was first articulated in a 1982 Atlantic article by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, who argued that “disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence.” That idea is rooted in the work of a mid-century political scientist named Edward Banfield. (Wilson studied under Banfield at the University of Chicago.) Banfield specialized in refuting the main tenet of modern liberalism, the idea that the state should take an active role in improving the lives of its most vulnerable residents. Banfield contended that state intervention could only make things worse.
In his 1970 book The Unheavenly City and a revised edition titled The Unheavenly City Revisited, Banfield addressed the era’s so-called urban crisis: high crime rates, riots, white flight. Liberalism was to blame, Banfield argued — or, at the very least, liberal policies would never help fix the crisis. The Great Society initiatives of the Johnson era had just served to widen class divisions and to encourage members of the lower classes to blame others for their plight, thus fostering feelings of resentment and entitlement.
Banfield argued that class divisions were based less on finances than on one’s life outlook and capacity for long-range thought. Members of the upper class were future-oriented, and, thus, able to postpone short-term pleasures for longer-term rewards. Members of the lower classes — urban blacks, in large part — lived from moment to moment, and acted out of a desire for instant gratification. They were also unambitious, “radically improvident,” antisocial and prone to mental illness. Their problems were a matter of pathology, not racial prejudice (which Banfield argued was on the wane).
Like many people, Banfield believed the urban unrest of the late 1960s had been stoked by matters of civil rights. But Banfield believed the problem was that the lower classes had too many of them. Criminal behaviour was human nature — or, rather, in the nature of a specific subset of lower-class humans. “So long as there are large concentrations of boys and young men of the lower classes on the streets, rampages and forays are to be expected,” Banfield wrote. The clear solution was to remove these lower-class youths from the streets posthaste.
“There are individuals whose propensity to crime is so high that no set of incentives that it is feasible to offer to the whole population would influence their behaviour,” Banfield wrote. The most effective way to prevent violent crime in cities, Banfield theorized, would therefore be to pre-emptively abridge the freedom of the “mostly young, lower-class males” who were likely to commit crimes in the future. What’s that? You say that “abridging the freedom of persons who have not committed crimes is incompatible with the principles of free society”? Well, said Banfield, “so, also, is the presence in free society of persons who, if their freedom is not abridged, would use it to inflict serious injuries on others.”
In their Atlantic article, Kelling and Wilson recognized the racial implications of order policing. “How do we ensure, in short, that the police do not become the agents of neighbourhood bigotry?” they asked, before essentially shrugging and moving on. “We can offer no wholly satisfactory answer to this important question.” Oh, well — hopefully everything will work itself out.
Justin Peters: Shattering the ‘broken windows’ theory of policing | National Post
Broken windows policing is back in New York City, and it may have killed Eric Garner. “Broken windows” is an order-maintenance strategy that encourages cops to enforce quality-of-life laws on the grounds that, essentially, nits breed lice. It presumes that a disorderly environment where small laws are broken with impunity leads to bigger problems. This is the mindset that led the police to approach Garner for allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes: loose cigarettes today, civil unrest tomorrow.
Though NYPD commissioner William Bratton is a big proponent of broken windows policing, there’s no evidence that the policy is effective in reducing violent crime. At the same time, the effects of order-maintenance policing are felt disproportionately by members of minority groups. In August, responding to critics’ claims that these policies unfairly target people of colour, Bratton told The Associated Press that “it’s not an intentional focus on minorities. It’s a focus on behaviour.” Bratton added, “We are not a racist organization — not at all.”
Maybe Bratton is right. But even if broken windows isn’t explicitly racist, it’s inherently classist, and the two are close enough as to be functionally indistinguishable.
The broken windows theory was first articulated in a 1982 Atlantic article by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, who argued that “disorder and crime are usually inextricably linked, in a kind of developmental sequence.” That idea is rooted in the work of a mid-century political scientist named Edward Banfield. (Wilson studied under Banfield at the University of Chicago.) Banfield specialized in refuting the main tenet of modern liberalism, the idea that the state should take an active role in improving the lives of its most vulnerable residents. Banfield contended that state intervention could only make things worse.
In his 1970 book The Unheavenly City and a revised edition titled The Unheavenly City Revisited, Banfield addressed the era’s so-called urban crisis: high crime rates, riots, white flight. Liberalism was to blame, Banfield argued — or, at the very least, liberal policies would never help fix the crisis. The Great Society initiatives of the Johnson era had just served to widen class divisions and to encourage members of the lower classes to blame others for their plight, thus fostering feelings of resentment and entitlement.
Banfield argued that class divisions were based less on finances than on one’s life outlook and capacity for long-range thought. Members of the upper class were future-oriented, and, thus, able to postpone short-term pleasures for longer-term rewards. Members of the lower classes — urban blacks, in large part — lived from moment to moment, and acted out of a desire for instant gratification. They were also unambitious, “radically improvident,” antisocial and prone to mental illness. Their problems were a matter of pathology, not racial prejudice (which Banfield argued was on the wane).
Like many people, Banfield believed the urban unrest of the late 1960s had been stoked by matters of civil rights. But Banfield believed the problem was that the lower classes had too many of them. Criminal behaviour was human nature — or, rather, in the nature of a specific subset of lower-class humans. “So long as there are large concentrations of boys and young men of the lower classes on the streets, rampages and forays are to be expected,” Banfield wrote. The clear solution was to remove these lower-class youths from the streets posthaste.
“There are individuals whose propensity to crime is so high that no set of incentives that it is feasible to offer to the whole population would influence their behaviour,” Banfield wrote. The most effective way to prevent violent crime in cities, Banfield theorized, would therefore be to pre-emptively abridge the freedom of the “mostly young, lower-class males” who were likely to commit crimes in the future. What’s that? You say that “abridging the freedom of persons who have not committed crimes is incompatible with the principles of free society”? Well, said Banfield, “so, also, is the presence in free society of persons who, if their freedom is not abridged, would use it to inflict serious injuries on others.”
In their Atlantic article, Kelling and Wilson recognized the racial implications of order policing. “How do we ensure, in short, that the police do not become the agents of neighbourhood bigotry?” they asked, before essentially shrugging and moving on. “We can offer no wholly satisfactory answer to this important question.” Oh, well — hopefully everything will work itself out.
