The “Broken Windows” theory of crime prevention is a controversial both as to its accuracy (buildings with broken windows signal that other property destruction is more permissable, leading to an overall increase of crime, both property and personal; thus, we can reduce crime by making sure that broken windows, etc., get fixed) and to some of the applications and political claims made for it.
But a social science researcher in the Netherlands has done some “real world” experiments that indicate there may be something to the Broken Windows theory — that evidence of some rules being broken makes people more likely to break other rules.
To do so, he took to the streets of Groningen and watched unknowing passers-by in real-life situations as they reacted to signs of disorder. The recurring question was this: would people exposed to inappropriate behaviour behave in a similar way themselves?
He began in an alleyway in a local shopping district, where bicycles are commonly parked and where a conspicuous red sign warned against graffiti. He attached a flyer from a fictional sportswear shop to the handlebars of parked bicycles and watched what people did as they returned to their rides. Under normal circumstances (picture on the left), most people took the flyer with them and just 33% littered by throwing it on the ground. But that all changed when Keiser covered the wall with graffiti (picture on the right). With this innocuous difference, the proportion of litterers doubled and 69% discarded their flyers on the street.
Several other similar experiments demonstrate much the same effect. In the presence of disorder and rule breaking, people are more likely to go along with it. (As one commenter on the blog notes, “anecdotally, my friends completely fail at throwing their trash away when my house is already messy. If it’s clean when they arrive, they automatically dispose of their trash.” That’s personal behavior I can certainly relate to in my own house — I keep things neater when they are neat; and when they aren’t, I let my own neatness slide.)
It’s not conclusive by any means, and like most social science, it’s not something that hard and fast numbers, let alone rock solid policy, can be derived from. But it’s certainly both interesting and something to ponder over.
As an old property manager I can tell you . . .the best way to stop graffiti is to actively eliminate any tag that appears on your property within 24hours. The taggers want to be seen, and making it frustrating for them runs them off. But let even one tag linger and shortly you become a vast canvas.
Park of the phenomenon here, though, is that signals like broken windows and graffiti will keep more law abiding/affluent folks from staying in the area or moving there in the first place.
But there’s also an element of neighborhood pride. If a neighborhood stays nice, neighbors get used to it and will pitch in to keep it nice and complain about abuses. A neighborhood that’s allowed to deteriorate never gets that spirit.