Broken Windows - Definition

Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by George L. Kelling and Catherine Coles is a sociology book about petty urban crime and strategies to contain it. It is based on Broken Windows by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, which appeared in the March 1982 edition of The Atlantic Monthly. The title comes from the following example:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

A successful strategy for preventing vandalism, say the book's authors, is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage. Clean up the sidewalk every day, and the tendency is for litter not to accumulate (or for the rate of littering to be much less).

Republican Mayor Giuliani adopted this strategy in New York City. He had the police strictly enforce the law against subway fare evasion and stopped (some say persecuted) the "squeegee men" who had been wiping windshields of stopped cars and demanding payment. Rates of more serious crimes fell significantly.

Democratic New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is also a prominent adherent of Broken Window Theory, especially in the context of white collar crime. Reference:

• George Kelling and Catherine Coles. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities, ISBN 0684837382

See also: broken window fallacy (Note that the Broken Window Fallacy does not have anything to do with the Broken window theory.)

External links

• Original March 1982 article (http://theatlantic.com/politics/crime/windows.htm) -- One must pay to view.