better city!

better life
Safer cities are good cities !

Safety in Theory
Broken Windows Theory
!
James Q. Wilson and George L Kelling, Broken Windows, Atlantic, March 1982 George Kelling and Catherine Coles, Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in our Cities (1996).

fix small problems quickly, and it is less likely to escalate. petty crime will be deterred. major crime is less likely. Kelling became a consultant to the New York City Transit Authority, 1985 graffiti targeted ! 1990 zero tolerance on fare dodging; 1993 Rudy Giuliani, more general zero tolerance policy ! linked by some to reduced crime in the city.

ZERO TOLERANCE?

Criticisms
1. Ignores other more important factors
economic boom in New York in the 1990s. waning of the crack epidemic. unrelated increase in the prison population due to the Rockefeller drug laws. number of males between 1624 was dropping as a proportion of population. number of delinquent children was decreasing because of Roe v. Wade one generation earlier. [Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, Freakonomics]

2. Confuses correlation with causality

study by Robert J. Sampson and Stephen W. Raudenbush suggest that a third factor called collective efficacycohesion among residents with shared expectations for the social control of public space is a stronger causal factor. a study on rehousing into more ordered neighbourhoods (crime remained at the same rate). (Bernhard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig, Law Review, 2006)

3. Extends its argument beyond immediate connections

maintenance=good order ! to intensified responses ! good order=intensified policing/moral judging ! problems of criminalizing the homeless and the poor (public space becomes the key to crime and those who are more vulnerable in those public spaces are targetted).

4. Treats a single sample as proof

Cf Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, Santiago, San Francisco, Washington DC

Domains of the Social