Sociology Plus
Broken Windows Theory of Crime Definition
The broken windows theory holds that visible signs of neighbourhood disorder — a broken window left unrepaired, graffiti, litter — signal that no one is in control, and that if left untended they encourage further disorder and, eventually, more serious crime. First set out by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982, it links minor, everyday deterioration to the breakdown of social order.
The Core Argument
Wilson and Kelling argued that an unrepaired broken window is a message that nobody cares for the area, inviting more damage. The idea was foreshadowed by the psychologist Philip Zimbardo (1969), who abandoned one car in a Bronx neighbourhood and an identical one in Palo Alto, California. The Bronx car was stripped within minutes; the Palo Alto car sat untouched for over a week — until Zimbardo himself smashed part of it, after which passers-by quickly joined in. In both cases, once a car looked damaged and abandoned, vandalism and theft followed.
Disorder and Social Control
The theory connects disorder to the strength of informal social control. In stable neighbourhoods residents feel attached to the area, watch out for one another’s property and safety, and quickly repair signs of disorder, so crime is less likely to take hold. Where a community can no longer regulate visible disorder, controls weaken and deterioration — potentially including serious crime — sets in.
Policy: Zero Tolerance Policing
The theory’s best-known application was the “zero tolerance” policing introduced in New York City under Mayor Rudy Giuliani, which rigorously enforced minor offences such as jaywalking, panhandling, public drunkenness, and graffiti on the premise that tackling small signs of disorder would head off more serious crime. Violent crime in the city fell sharply during this period (Bratton 1997).
Debate and Evidence
Whether that decline can be credited to broken windows policing remains contested. Bernard Harcourt (2002) argues that cracking down on quality-of-life offences had little effect on crime and that no direct link between neighbourhood disorder and crime rates has ever been demonstrated. Comparative work by Brereton (1999) found that crime also fell in the mid-1990s in cities such as Chicago, San Diego, Washington, and Los Angeles, which used very different policing approaches — suggesting broader forces were at work. Kelling and colleagues (2001) reported that rising misdemeanour arrests reduced violent crime in New York, but critics note that misdemeanour arrests do not really measure existing disorder, and the effect may reflect greater police presence rather than the repair of “broken windows.” More refined research — for instance, comparing disordered neighbourhoods with those undergoing renewal, and controlling for factors such as unemployment — is needed to establish whether fixing disorder genuinely lowers crime.