How NYC championed broken windows policing and threw it away: Goodwin
By Michael Goodwin
August 15, 2020 | 10:27pm | Updated
In the event the goon squad trashing New York and other cities puts me under a hot light and demands I say nice things about their “movement,†I’m ready. I will thank them for proving the righteousness of the “broken windows†theory of policing.
That wasn’t the aim, of course, but the mayhem unleashed by the marauders and quisling politicians ends the argument about whether James Q. Wilson and George Kelling got it right. The national disaster unfolding before our eyes validates their conclusions about human nature and common sense.
Wilson and Kelling introduced the idea that would revolutionize law enforcement in 1982 in The Atlantic magazine with this famous summary: “Social psychologists and police officers tend to agree that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones.â€
The implication was that public disorder and petty crimes — litter, graffiti, vandalism — would multiply if left uncontested and metasÂtasize into robbery, rape and murder.
https://nypost.com/2020/08/15/how-nyc-used-then-tore-up-broken-windows-policing-goodwin/
