Mandatory sentencing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandatory_sentencing 

Mandatory sentencing requires that offenders serve a predefined term for certain crimes, commonly serious and violent offenses. Judges are bound by law; these sentences are produced through the legislature, not the judicial system. They are instituted to expedite the sentencing process and limit the possibility of irregularity of outcomes due to judicial discretion. Mandatory sentences are typically given to people who are convicted of certain serious and/or violent crimes, and require a prison sentence. Mandatory sentencing laws vary across nations; they are more prevalent in common law jurisdictions because civil law jurisdictions usually prescribe minimum and maximum sentences for every type of crime in explicit laws.

Mandatory sentencing laws often target "moral vices" (such as alcohol, sex, drugs) and crimes that threaten a person's livelihood. The idea is that there are some crimes that are so heinous, there is no way to accept the offender back into the general population without first punishing them sufficiently. Some crimes are viewed as serious enough to require an indefinite removal from society by a life sentence, or sometimes capital punishment. It is viewed as a public service to separate these people from the general population, as it is assumed that the nature of the crime or the frequency of violation supersedes the subjective opinion of a judge. Remedying the irregularities in sentencing that arise from judicial discretion are supposed to make sentencing more fair and balanced. In Australia and the United Kingdom, sentencing has been heavily influenced by judicial idiosyncrasies. Individual judges have a significant effect on the outcome of the case, sometimes leading the public to believe that a sentence reflects more about the judge than the offender. Subsequently, creating stricter sentencing guidelines would promote consistency and fairness in the judicial system. Mandatory sentences are also supposed to serve as a general deterrence for potential criminals and repeat offenders, who are expected to avoid crime because they can be certain of their sentence if they are caught. This is the reasoning behind the "tough on crime" policy.

United States federal juries are generally not allowed to be informed of the mandatory minimum penalties that may apply if the accused is convicted because the jury's role is limited to a determination of guilt or innocence. However, defense attorneys sometimes have found ways to impart this information to juries; for instance, it is occasionally possible, on cross-examination of an informant who faced similar charges, to ask how much time he was facing. It is sometimes deemed permissible because it is a means of impeaching the witness. However, in at least one state court case in Idaho, it was deemed impermissible.

Notably, capital punishment has been mandatory for murder in a certain number of jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom until 1957 and Canada until 1961.

History

United States

Throughout US history, prison sentences were primarily founded upon what is known as discretionary sentencing. Leading up to this period of time, sentencing practices were largely criticized due to the discretionary applications utilized in sentencing. The assessment for sentencing was determined by three separate decisions (1) policy decisions, (2) factual decisions, and (3) decisions applying policy decisions to particular facts. In review of these policies regarding the applications of sentencing, the policy decisions are those that dictate what considerations should affect punishment. The second, which is factual determinations are the means by which a judge determines whether to apply a particular policy to an offender. The third decision judges make in discretionary schemes is how to apply the sentencing policies to the particular facts. This authority was applied by the judge under the discretionary sentencing system as historically practiced. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that mandatory sentencing was implemented. In short, the difference between mandatory and discretionary sentencing system lies in policy and application decisions.

Now that historical practices of sentencing have been introduced, it is just as important to outline examples in reference to (1) policy decisions, (2) factual decisions, and (3) decisions applying policy vs. decisions to particular facts.

• Policy Decisions – Policy guidelines that determine what should be acknowledged in an individuals sentencing criteria. For example: One judge might consider a reduction in time to be served vs. a judge who intends to exercise the fullest extent of the law in reference to the crime committed.
• Factual Decisions – A review of details that would enable particular policies to be applied at the discretion of the assigned judge. Hypothetically consider, two or more individuals who attempt to commit a crime using a deadly weapon. Assume these individuals reach their destination point, where they plan to commit such a crime. Then the one individual who is primarily carrying the weapon takes it out to threaten another individual and waves it about, but is suddenly spooked enough that the weapon is dropped. While the other individual who accompanied the perpetrator decides to pick up the weapon, wave it about and even inflicts force of use with the weapon in order to attempt or commit the crime.

Their actions would result in punishment as a part of the sentencing process, regardless of the type of weapon in question. The 1st, individual in fact waved the weapon, but the 2nd, waved and inflicted force of use of the weapon. Therefore, the two individuals in question regarding the same crime would receive two separate sentences.

• Decisions Applying Policy vs. Decisions to Particular Facts - This form of application is the core of discretionary sentencing. It allows for sentencing to be tailored to an individual. For example, consider a minor juvenile who has committed a crime that would allow for a lengthy sentencing period, but because the individual is a minor the assigned judge can exercise discretion and decrease the sentence to be served vs. applying the full length of the sentencing as outlined in policy and the facts associated with the crime.

Overtime, the United States had under gone developmental growth in implementation of laws, sentencing guidelines and monumental transition points in time. Beginning in the early 1900s, the United States began to assess its role on the use of drugs, their purpose and the responsibilities within the law. During this time in 1914, opiate drug use outside of medical purpose was prohibited. It was not until 1930 that marijuana would reach the same platform as opiates, prohibiting use. This further led to stiffer regulations, even though the use of marijuana was not believed to evoke violent tenancies as previously suggested in earlier years, but this level of awareness had not reached public acknowledgment. Which further led to the implementation of sentencing guidelines in reference to drug use as well as sales consisting of opiates primarily (heroin and morphine), but also to include marijuana. The sentencing guidelines outlined applied to the use and sales of drugs. However, during this time discretionary sentencing was actively practiced. Therefore, the individuals who were guilty of utilizing such drugs vs. the sale of such use typically resulted in different sentences. Mandatory sentencing and increased punishment were enacted when the United States Congress passed the Boggs Act of 1951.

The acts made a first time cannabis possession offense a minimum of two to ten years with a fine up to $20,000; however, in 1970, the United States Congress repealed mandatory penalties for cannabis offenses. With the passage of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 Congress enacted different mandatory minimum sentences for drugs, including marijuana.

• 1st Offense: 2–5 years.
• 2nd Offense: 5–10 years.

The Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 is the one act known for shaping America. The implementations of this act has had many profound affects in the legal system, as we know it today. This act led to a Drug Free initiative regarding an individual's employment, a Drug Free work place and certification requirements for employers, and a Drug Free environment for those who receive government benefits regarding low-income recipients and their housing. This act further addresses interventions regarding illegal sales of imports, the ability to overtake ones assets, if an individual is found guilty of distribution. The act also implemented the first laws surrounding money laundering, which also led to the exposure of professional dealers and further identifies the crisis we are faced with today in reference to "The War on Drugs" we still combat today. Those found guilty of distribution were sentenced as outlined.^[12]

• 5g. of Crack vs. 500 g. of Powder Cocaine resulted in a minimum sentencing of 5 years.
• 50 g. of Crack vs. 5,000 g. of Powder Cocaine resulted in a minimum sentencing of 10 years.
• 50 g. of Powder Cocaine imported resulted in No Mandatory Sentence

Separate from each state's own courts, federal courts in the United States are guided by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines. When a guideline sentencing range is less than the statutory mandatory minimum, the latter prevails. Under the Controlled Substances Act, prosecutors have great power to influence a defendant's sentence and thereby create incentives to accept a plea agreement. In particular, defendants with prior drug felonies are often subject to harsh mandatory minimums, but the prosecutor can exercise his discretion to not file a prior felony information. Then the mandatory minimum will not be applied.

Safety Valve was created in 1994 to reduce mandatory sentencing for drug offenders under the following provisions:

1. the defendant does not have more than 1 criminal history point, as determined under the sentencing guidelines;
2. the defendant did not use violence or credible threats of violence or possess a firearm or other dangerous weapon (or induce another participant to do so) in connection with the offense;
3. the offense did not result in death or serious bodily injury to any person;
4. the defendant was not an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor of others in the offense, as determined under the sentencing guidelines and was not engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise, as defined in section 408 of the Controlled Substances Act; and
5. not later than the time of the sentencing hearing, the defendant has truthfully provided to the Government all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan, but the fact that the defendant has no relevant or useful other information to provide or that the Government is already aware of the information shall not preclude a determination by the court that the defendant has complied with this requirement.

In October 2011 a report was issued to assess the impact of United States v. Booker mandatory minimum penalties on federal sentencing by the United States Sentencing Commission.

In 2013, United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. announced that the Justice Department would follow a new policy restricting mandatory minimum sentences in certain drug cases. Prosecutions dropped, drug enforcement agent morale dropped, and fentanyl and heroin overdoses soared, reported The Washington Post in 2019. In Alleyne v. United States (2013) the Supreme Court held that increasing a sentence past the mandatory minimum requirement must be submitted by a jury and found factual beyond a reasonable doubt. It increases the burden on the prosecutor to prove that the sentence is necessary for the individual crime by requiring that a mandatory minimum sentence be denied for defendant unless they fulfill certain criteria. Attorney General Holder held that the charges placed on an individual should reflect the uniqueness of the case and consideration in assessing and fairly representing his/her given conduct. This is supposed to prevent recidivism.

Criminal justice advocates in the United States argue that mandatory minimum sentences are a major cause of the removal of the "bottom income half to quartile" of its population from the general public. As part of police targeting and surveillance and often harsh sentencing, mandatory sentencing often is proposed as "fairness" by those unfamiliar with the penal systems in the US. Mandatory sentencing still has not been linked to other areas such as racial profiling, a 700% increase in US prison incarceration rates, zero tolerance and prison growth at the expense of employment, housing, education, family support and quality of life.

The U.S. state of Florida has a 10-20-Life mandatory sentence law regarding sentences for the use of a firearm during the commission of another crime, and many PSA posters were created after the law was passed, which coined the slogan “Use a gun, and you’re done.” It gave a minimum mandatory sentence of 10 years if the offender pulls a gun, but does not fire a shot, 20 years if at least one shot is fired, and 25 years to life if the offender shoots someone.

Australia

In 1996, 12 month mandatory sentencing laws around third offence home burglary were introduced by Western Australia through amendments to the 1913 Criminal Code. In 1997 mandatory sentencing was introduced to the Northern Territory in Australia. The three strikes and out policy raised incarceration rates of indigenous women by 223% in the first year. The incarceration rate for men rose by 57% and 67% for indigenous men. The mandatory sentencing laws sparked debate of the laws being discriminative (indirectly) as indigenous people are overrepresented in the crime statistics in the Northern Territory.

New South Wales has two mandatory sentences currently. The Crimes Amendment (Murder of Police Officers) Bill 2011 introduced mandatory life sentence without parole for a person convicted of murdering a police officer. Also, the Crimes and Other Legislation (Assault and Intoxication) Amendment 2014 introduced mandatory minimum sentencing of 8 years for alcohol fuelled acts of violence, as a response to the cases of king hit assaults in Sydney. These laws were championed by NSW Premier Barry O'Farrell largely due to the wide media coverage of similar cases, in particular the case of Kieren Loveridge who killed Thomas Kelly.

Life imprisonment is mandatory for murder in Queensland, South Australia, and the Northern Territory. Life imprisonment is only mandatory in the other states for aircraft hijacking or with a minimum non-parole period of 20 years (25 years in South Australia and the Northern Territory) if a criminal is convicted of the murder of a police officer or public official.

Australia also has legislation allowing mandatory prison sentences of between five and 25 years for people smuggling, in addition to a fine of up to $500,000, and forfeiture and destruction of the vessel or aircraft used in the offence.

In 2017, the government of Victoria introduced a "two-strike" policy, with a minimum six-year jail sentence for repeat violent offenders.

Victoria also has a mandatory 10 year minimum sentence for people convicted of killing someone in a so-called "one punch" attack.

Victoria has mandatory sentencing of 6 months imprisonment for any assault of emergency workers however the courts have overruled this as is the case with https://www.news.com.au/news/national/paramedic-assault-laws-work-says-judge/news-story/64deeecddde2daee7e1c538269b31cdd

Mandatory death sentence

• In Canada until 1961, murder was punishable only by death, provided that the offender was a sane adult.
• In 1930, the city of Canton (now Guangzhou), in China, enacted a mandatory death penalty for three-time offenders.
• In Czechoslovakia, under Beneš decree No. 16/1945 Coll., informing to German authorities during World War II's occupation was subject to mandatory death sentence if it led to death of the person concerned by the act.
• In pre-1833 France, before jury were allowed to find mitigating circumstances to felonies, death penalty was the only available sentence for capital offenses.
• In Hong Kong, murder carried a mandatory death sentence until 1993 when capital punishment was legally abolished. However, the last execution was in 1966; since then all death sentences were automatically commuted into life imprisonment.
• In India, murder committed by a convict serving a life sentence carries a mandatory death sentence. The mandatory death penalty provided in Section 31A of India Law is in the nature of minimum sentence in respect of repeat offenders of specified activities and for offences involving huge quantities of specified categories of narcotic drugs. As of August 2005, aircraft hijacking also mandates use of the death penalty.
• In Japan, the only crime punishable by a mandatory death sentence is instigation of foreign aggression.
• In Malaysia and Singapore, there is a mandatory death penalty for certain offences, most notably murder and possession of a certain amount of controlled drugs.
• In Taiwan, there used to be a large number of offenses that carried a mandatory death penalty; by 2006 all these laws have been relaxed to permit judicial discretion.
• In the United Kingdom, crimes punishable by a mandatory death sentence included murder (until 1957; from 1957 to 1965, only if certain aggravating criteria were met), treason (until 1998), sedition and espionage.
• In the United States, mandatory death sentences were determined to be unconstitutional in 1976, following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Woodson v. North Carolina. They were mainly used for murder and assault by life convicts.

Other

Denmark has mandatory minimum sentences for murder (five years to life) and regicide (life in prison § 115), deadly arson is punished with imprisonment from 4 years to life, and for an illegal loaded gun one year in state prison.

The state of Florida in the United States has a very strict minimum sentencing policy known as 10-20-Life, which includes the following minimums: 10 years' imprisonment for using a gun during a crime, 20 years' imprisonment for firing a gun during a crime, and 25 years' imprisonment in addition to any other sentence for shooting somebody, regardless of whether they survive or not.

In Canada and Ireland, life imprisonment is mandatory for murder if committed, at the time of the offence, as an adult. Parole ineligibility periods vary, but under Irish and Canadian law, are not less than 7 and 10 years, respectively.

In New Zealand, life imprisonment is mandatory for murder. Murders with certain aggravating factors have a mandatory 17-year non-parole period, instead of the default 10 years for life imprisonment. Since 2002, judges have the ability to overrule mandatory sentences where they would be deemed "manifestly unjust", such as in cases involving mercy killings and failed suicide pacts.

In Germany, murder for pleasure, sexual gratification, greed or other base motives, by stealth or cruelly or by means that pose a danger to the public or in order to facilitate or cover up another offense is mandatorily punished by life imprisonment.

In the United Kingdom, upon conviction for murder, the court must sentence the defendant to life imprisonment. The law requires that courts must set a minimum term before they become eligible for parole. For this purpose a number of "starting points" are in place that give guidance to a judge in order to impose a sentence in each different case of murder. There are currently five "starting points" for murder in England and Wales, namely: 12 years' imprisonment for cases of murder committed by a person under 18; 15 years' imprisonment for all "other" cases of murder committed by a person over 18; 25 years' imprisonment for cases of murder where a person over 18 uses a knife or other weapon at the scene; 30 years' imprisonment for cases of murder with "particularly" high aggravating factors, such as those that involve the use of a firearm or explosive, or a murder in the course of committing another offence such as robbery or burglary; and a whole life order, in cases that involve such "exceptionally" high aggravating factors, such as the murder of two or more persons, or the murder of a child following abduction or with sexual/sadistic motivation, meaning the person will never become eligible for parole.

The United Kingdom currently also has three more mandatory minimum sentences for certain offences, namely: a minimum of 7 years' imprisonment for a person over 18 convicted of trafficking, supplying or producing Class A drugs for the third or subsequent time; a minimum of 5 years' imprisonment (for a person over 18) or 3 years' imprisonment (for a person aged 16–17) for possession, purchase, acquisition, manufacture, transfer or sale of a prohibited firearm or weapon for the first or subsequent time; and a minimum of 3 years' imprisonment for a person over 18 convicted of a domestic burglary for the third or subsequent time.

Three strikes law

In 1994, California introduced a "Three Strikes Law", which was the first mandatory sentencing law to gain widespread publicity. This state is known for fully enforcing laws and is considered most severe in comparison to other states. The Three strikes law was intended to reduce crime by implementing extended sentencing to deter repeated offenders. This consideration further restricts one’s ability to commit new crimes.  Similar laws were subsequently adopted in most American jurisdictions.

However, California's "Three Strikes Law" is clearly outlined for all, especially those who are subjected to such sentencing.

strike (1)

• Directly affects individuals who exhibit a history regarded as violent or serious pertaining to their initial felony conviction. Should this history exist, it could greatly impact sentencing guidelines surrounding an individuals present felony conviction.

strike (2)

• An individual who has committed a crime resulting in their 2nd felony conviction, would be affected by the second strike as well. This would impact the length of the individuals sentencing by doubling the sentence one would initially be subject to, if it were their first felony conviction.

strike (3)

• Is intended individuals who appear to be repeated offenders. Therefore, this strike is for individuals who have two or more felony convictions, their sentencing would result in a minimum of 25 years to life.

A similar "three strikes" policy was introduced to the United Kingdom by the Conservative government in 1997. This legislation enacted a mandatory life sentence on a conviction for a second "serious" violent or sexual offence (i.e. "two strikes" law), a minimum sentence of seven years for those convicted for a third time of a drug trafficking offence involving a class A drug, and a mandatory minimum sentence of three years for those convicted for the third time of burglary. An amendment by the Labour opposition established that mandatory sentences should not be imposed if the judge considered it unjust.

According to figures released by the British government in 2005, just three drug dealers and eight burglars received mandatory sentences in the next seven years, because judges thought a longer sentence was unjust in all other drug and burglary cases where the defendant was found guilty. However, in 2003 a new "two strikes" law was enacted (effective from April 4, 2005), requiring courts to presume that a criminal who commits his second violent or dangerous offence deserves a life sentence unless the judge is satisfied that the defendant is not a danger to the public. This resulted in far more life sentences than the 1997 legislation. In response to prison overcrowding, the law was changed in 2008 to reduce the number of such sentences being passed, by restoring judicial discretion and abolishing the presumption that a repeat offender is dangerous.

Australia's Northern Territory in March 1997 introduced mandatory sentences of one month to one year for the third offence regarding property and theft. They were later adopted by Western Australia.

Race

Concerning US federal prisons, Barbara S. Meierhoefer, in her report for the Federal Judicial Center stated: "The proportion of black offenders grew from under 10% in 1984 to 28% of the mandatory minimum drug offenders by 1990; whites now constitute less than a majority of this group. This is a much more dramatic shift than found in the federal offender population in general."

Harsh penalties lead to racial disparity. According to the Statistical Overview of Mandatory Minimum Penalties presented in October 2011, "[o]f all offenders convicted of an offense carrying a mandatory minimum punishment and who remained subject to that penalty at sentencing, 38.5 percent were Black (n=4,076), 31.8 percent were Hispanic (n=3,364), and 27.5 percent (n=2,913) were White."

Although exceptions such as the safety valve are authorized, demographics associated with race relevant to mandatory sentencing continue to show. "Hispanic offenders received relief from applicable mandatory minimum penalties at the highest rates, with rates of 65.9 percent in fiscal year 2000, 57.7 percent in fiscal year 2005, and 55.7 percent in fiscal year 2010. Other Race offenders had the next highest rates (52.8% in fiscal year 2000, 53.1% in fiscal year 2005 and 58.9% in fiscal year 2010). Black offenders consistently had the lowest rates (45.7% in fiscal year 2000, 32.8 percent in fiscal year 2005, and 34.9% in fiscal year 2010). White offenders received relief at 60.3 percent in fiscal year 2000, 42.5 percent in fiscal year 2005, and 46.5 percent in fiscal year 2010."

Arguments against

Opponents of mandatory sentencing point to studies that show criminals are deterred more effectively by increasing the chances of their conviction, rather than increasing the sentence if they are convicted. In a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee, Judge Paul G. Cassell, from the United States District Court for the District of Utah, described mandatory sentencing as resulting in harsh sentencing and cruel and unusual punishment, stating that the sentencing requirements punish defendants "more harshly for crimes that threaten potential violence than for crimes that conclude in actual violence to victims". A hearing in 2009 heard testimony from the American Bar Association which stated that "Sentencing by mandatory minimums is the antithesis of rational sentencing policy". In 2004 the association called for the repeal of mandatory minimum sentences, stating that "there is no need for mandatory minimum sentences in a guided sentencing system." A 1997 study by the RAND Corporation found that mandatory minimums for cocaine offenses were not cost-effective in regards to either cocaine consumption or drug crime.

Some judges have expressed the opinion that mandatory minimum sentencing, especially in relation to alcohol-fueled violence, is not effective. In R v O’Connor, the High Court of Australia gave the opinion that when an offender is intoxicated, there will likely be a change in their personality and behaviour, which will then affect their self-control; that, while an offender may commit an act which is voluntary and intentional, it is not something that they would have done in a sober state. Intoxication is not a justification for criminal behaviour, nor (in most jurisdictions in the U.S. and Commonwealth) a legal defence; but since an intoxicated person's decisions are less likely to be shaped by rational assessment of consequences than those of a sober person, deterrence is likely to be less effective for intoxicated people.

Research indicates that mandatory minimum sentencing effectively shifts discretion from judges to the prosecutors. Prosecutors decide what charges to bring against a defendant, and they can "stack the deck", which involves over-charging a defendant in order to get them to plead guilty. Since prosecutors are part of the executive branch, and the judicial branch has almost no role in the sentencing, the checks and balances of the democratic system are removed, thus diluting the notion of separation of powers.

Opponents of mandatory sentencing argue that it is the proper role of a judge, not a prosecutor, to apply discretion given the particular facts of a case (e.g., whether a drug defendant was a kingpin or low-level participant, or whether sex offender registration is an appropriate measure for a given crime and offender). When prosecutors apply discretion, they tend to invoke sentencing disparities when choosing among a variety of statutes with different sentencing consequences. In addition to fairness arguments, some opponents believe that treatment is more cost-effective than long sentences. They also cite a survey indicating that the public now prefers judicial discretion to mandatory minimums.

In 2015, a number of United States reformers, including the ACLU, the Center for American Progress, Families Against Mandatory Minimums, Koch family foundations, the Coalition for Public Safety, and the MacArthur Foundation, announced a bipartisan resolution to reform the criminal justice system and reduce mandatory sentencing laws. Their efforts were lauded by President Obama who noted these reforms will improve rehabilitation and workforce opportunities for those who have served their sentences. In their arguments they noted that mandatory sentencing is often too harsh of a punishment and cripples someone's livelihood for minor crimes.

People sentenced to mandatory sentences

• Weldon Angelos – 55 years for possessing a handgun while he sold $350 worth of marijuana to a police informant on three separate occasions
• Leandro Andrade – 50 years without parole for theft of nine video tapes
• Morton Berger – 200 years without probation, parole or pardon for twenty counts of sexual exploitation of a minor; each count represented a separate child pornography image he had possessed
• Genarlow Wilson – 10 years for aggravated child molestation; released in 2007 after serving four years because the courts decided his sentence was disproportionate to the actual facts of the crime
• Chantal McCorkle – 24 years for fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud; sentence subsequently reduced to 18 years on appeal
• Richard Paey – 25 years for 15 counts of drug trafficking and other charges including fraud; granted a pardon in 2007 after serving three and a half years due to the circumstances of his drug use
• Timothy L. Tyler – Life in prison for possessing 13 sheets of LSD.
• John the Painter – Sentenced to death for arson in royal dockyards.
• Van Tuong Nguyen - Sentenced to death for trafficking 396.2g of heroin through Singapore

Broken windows theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City

The broken windows theory is a criminological theory that states that visible signs of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes. The theory suggests that policing methods that target minor crimes, such as vandalism, loitering, public drinking, jaywalking and fare evasion, help to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes.

The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling. It was further popularized in the 1990s by New York City police commissioner William Bratton and Mayor Rudy Giuliani, whose policing policies were influenced by the theory.

The theory became subject to great debate both within the social sciences and the public sphere. Broken windows policing has become associated with controversial police practices, such as the use of "stop-and-frisk" by the New York City Police Department. In response, Bratton and Kelling have written that broken windows policing should not be treated as "zero tolerance" or "zealotry", but as a method that requires "careful training, guidelines and supervision" and a positive relationship with communities, thus linking it to community policing.

Article and crime prevention

The broken windows of an abandoned hospital building in Northampton, Massachusetts

James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling first introduced the broken windows theory in an article titled "Broken Windows", in the March 1982 issue of The Atlantic Monthly.

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. Window-breaking does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined window-breakers whereas others are populated by window-lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)

The article received a great deal of attention and was very widely cited. A 1996 criminology and urban sociology book, Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by George L. Kelling and Catharine Coles, is based on the article but develops the argument in greater detail. It discusses the theory in relation to crime and strategies to contain or eliminate crime from urban neighborhoods.

A successful strategy for preventing vandalism, according to the book's authors, is to address 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). Problems are less likely to escalate and thus "respectable" residents do not flee the neighborhood.

Oscar Newman introduced defensible space theory in his 1972 book Defensible Space. He argued that although police work is crucial to crime prevention, police authority is not enough to maintain a safe and crime-free city. People in the community help with crime prevention. Newman proposed that people care for and protect spaces that they feel invested in, arguing that an area is eventually safer if the people feel a sense of ownership and responsibility towards the area. Broken windows and vandalism are still prevalent because communities simply do not care about the damage. Regardless of how many times the windows are repaired, the community still must invest some of their time to keep it safe. Residents' negligence of broken window-type decay signifies a lack of concern for the community. Newman says this is a clear sign that the society has accepted this disorder—allowing the unrepaired windows to display vulnerability and lack of defense. Malcolm Gladwell also relates this theory to the reality of New York City in his book, The Tipping Point.

Thus, the theory makes a few major claims: that improving the quality of the neighborhood environment reduces petty crime, anti-social behavior and low-level disorder, and that major crime is also prevented as a result. Criticism of the theory has tended to focus on the latter claim.

Theoretical explanation

The reason the state of the urban environment may affect crime consists of three factors: social norms and conformity; the presence or lack of routine monitoring; and social signaling and signal crime.

In an anonymous urban environment, with few or no other people around, social norms and monitoring are not clearly known. Thus, individuals look for signals within the environment as to the social norms in the setting and the risk of getting caught violating those norms; one of the signals is the area's general appearance.

Under the broken windows theory, an ordered and clean environment, one that is maintained, sends the signal that the area is monitored and that criminal behavior is not tolerated. Conversely, a disordered environment, one that is not maintained (broken windows, graffiti, excessive litter), sends the signal that the area is not monitored and that criminal behavior has little risk of detection.

The theory assumes that the landscape "communicates" to people. A broken window transmits to criminals the message that a community displays a lack of informal social control and so is unable or unwilling to defend itself against a criminal invasion. It is not so much the actual broken window that is important, but the message the broken window sends to people. It symbolizes the community's defenselessness and vulnerability and represents the lack of cohesiveness of the people within.

Neighborhoods with a strong sense of cohesion fix broken windows and assert social responsibility on themselves, effectively giving themselves control over their space.

The theory emphasizes the built environment, but must also consider human behavior.

Under the impression that a broken window left unfixed leads to more serious problems, residents begin to change the way they see their community. In an attempt to stay safe, a cohesive community starts to fall apart, as individuals start to spend less time in communal space to avoid potential violent attacks by strangers. The slow deterioration of a community, as a result of broken windows, modifies the way people behave when it comes to their communal space, which, in turn, breaks down community control. As rowdy teenagers, panhandlers, addicts and prostitutes slowly make their way into a community, it signifies that the community cannot assert informal social control, and citizens become afraid that worse things will happen. As a result, they spend less time in the streets to avoid these subjects and feel less and less connected from their community, if the problems persist.

At times, residents tolerate "broken windows" because they feel they belong in the community and "know their place". Problems, however, arise when outsiders begin to disrupt the community's cultural fabric. That is the difference between "regulars" and "strangers" in a community. The way that "regulars" act represents the culture within, but strangers are "outsiders" who do not belong.

Consequently, daily activities considered "normal" for residents now become uncomfortable, as the culture of the community carries a different feel from the way that it was once.

With regard to social geography, the broken windows theory is a way of explaining people and their interactions with space. The culture of a community can deteriorate and change over time, with the influence of unwanted people and behaviors changing the landscape. The theory can be seen as people shaping space, as the civility and attitude of the community create spaces used for specific purposes by residents. On the other hand, it can also be seen as space shaping people, with elements of the environment influencing and restricting day-to-day decision making.

However, with policing efforts to remove unwanted disorderly people that put fear in the public's eyes, the argument would seem to be in favor of "people shaping space", as public policies are enacted and help to determine how one is supposed to behave. All spaces have their own codes of conduct, and what is considered to be right and normal will vary from place to place.

The concept also takes into consideration spatial exclusion and social division, as certain people behaving in a given way are considered disruptive and therefore, unwanted. It excludes people from certain spaces because their behavior does not fit the class level of the community and its surroundings. A community has its own standards and communicates a strong message to criminals, by social control, that their neighborhood does not tolerate their behavior. If, however, a community is unable to ward off would-be criminals on their own, policing efforts help.

By removing unwanted people from the streets, the residents feel safer and have a higher regard for those that protect them. People of less civility who try to make a mark in the community are removed, according to the theory. Excluding the unruly and people of certain social statuses is an attempt to keep the balance and cohesiveness of a community.

Concepts

Informal social controls

Many claim that informal social control can be an effective strategy to reduce unruly behavior. Garland (2001) expresses that "community policing measures in the realization that informal social control exercised through everyday relationships and institutions is more effective than legal sanctions."

Informal social control methods have demonstrated a "get tough" attitude by proactive citizens, and express a sense that disorderly conduct is not tolerated. According to Wilson and Kelling, there are two types of groups involved in maintaining order, 'community watchmen' and 'vigilantes'.  The United States has adopted in many ways policing strategies of old European times, and at that time, informal social control was the norm, which gave rise to contemporary formal policing. Though, in earlier times, because there were no legal sanctions to follow, informal policing was primarily 'objective' driven, as stated by Wilson and Kelling (1982).

Wilcox et al. 2004 argue that improper land use can cause disorder, and the larger the public land is, the more susceptible to criminal deviance. Therefore, nonresidential spaces, such as businesses, may assume to the responsibility of informal social control "in the form of surveillance, communication, supervision, and intervention". It is expected that more strangers occupying the public land creates a higher chance for disorder. Jane Jacobs can be considered one of the original pioneers of this perspective of broken windows. Much of her book, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, focuses on residents' and nonresidents' contributions to maintaining order on the street, and explains how local businesses, institutions, and convenience stores provide a sense of having "eyes on the street".

On the contrary, many residents feel that regulating disorder is not their responsibility. Wilson and Kelling found that studies done by psychologists suggest people often refuse to go to the aid of someone seeking help, not due to a lack of concern or selfishness "but the absence of some plausible grounds for feeling that one must personally accept responsibility". On the other hand, others plainly refuse to put themselves in harm's way, depending on how grave they perceive the nuisance to be; a 2004 study observed that "most research on disorder is based on individual level perceptions decoupled from a systematic concern with the disorder-generating environment." Essentially, everyone perceives disorder differently, and can contemplate seriousness of a crime based on those perceptions. However, Wilson and Kelling feel that although community involvement can make a difference, “the police are plainly the key to order maintenance.”

Role of fear

Ranasinghe argues that the concept of fear is a crucial element of broken windows theory, because it is the foundation of the theory.  She also adds that public disorder is "...unequivocally constructed as problematic because it is a source of fear". Fear is elevated as perception of disorder rises; creating a social pattern that tears the social fabric of a community, and leaves the residents feeling hopeless and disconnected. Wilson and Kelling hint at the idea, but don't focus on its central importance. They indicate that fear was a product of incivility, not crime, and that people avoid one another in response to fear, weakening controls. Hinkle and Weisburd found that police interventions to combat minor offenses, as per the broken windows model, "significantly increased the probability of feeling unsafe," suggesting that such interventions might offset any benefits of broken windows policing in terms of fear reduction.

Difference with "zero tolerance"

Broken windows policing is sometimes described as a "zero tolerance" policing style, including in some academic studies. However, several key proponents, such as Bratton and Kelling, argue that there is a key difference. In 2014, they outlined a difference between "broken windows policing" and "zero tolerance":

Critics use the term "zero tolerance" in a pejorative sense to suggest that Broken Windows policing is a form of zealotry—the imposition of rigid, moralistic standards of behavior on diverse populations. It is not. Broken Windows is a highly discretionary police activity that requires careful training, guidelines, and supervision, as well as an ongoing dialogue with neighborhoods and communities to ensure that it is properly conducted.

Bratton and Kelling advocate that authorities should be effective at catching minor offenders while also giving them lenient punishment. Citing fare evasion, as an example, they argue that the police should attempt to catch fare evaders, and that the vast majority should be summoned to court rather than arrested and given a punishment other than jail. The goal is to deter minor offenders from committing more serious crimes in the future and reduce the prison population in the long run.

Critical developments

In an earlier publication of The Atlantic released March, 1982, Wilson wrote an article indicating that police efforts had gradually shifted from maintaining order to fighting crime. This indicated that order maintenance was something of the past, and soon it would seem as it has been put on the back burner. The shift was attributed to the rise of the social urban riots of the 1960s, and "social scientists began to explore carefully the order maintenance function of the police, and to suggest ways of improving it—not to make streets safer (its original function) but to reduce the incidence of mass violence". Other criminologists argue between similar disconnections, for example, Garland argues that throughout the early and mid 20th century, police in American cities strived to keep away from the neighborhoods under their jurisdiction. This is a possible indicator of the out-of-control social riots that were prevalent at that time. Still many would agree that reducing crime and violence begins with maintaining social control/order.

Jane Jacobs' The Death and Life of Great American Cities is discussed in detail by Ranasinghe, and its importance to the early workings of broken windows, and claims that Kelling's original interest in "minor offences and disorderly behaviour and conditions" was inspired by Jacobs' work. Ranasinghe includes that Jacobs' approach toward social disorganization was centralized on the "streets and their sidewalks, the main public places of a city" and that they "are its most vital organs, because they provide the principal visual scenes". Wilson and Kelling, as well as Jacobs, argue on the concept of civility (or the lack thereof) and how it creates lasting distortions between crime and disorder. 

Ranasinghe explains that the common framework of both set of authors is to narrate the problem facing urban public places. Jacobs, according to Ranasinghe, maintains that "Civility functions as a means of informal social control, subject little to institutionalized norms and processes, such as the law" 'but rather maintained through an' "intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among people... and enforced by the people themselves".

Case studies

Precursor experiments

Before the introduction of this theory by Wilson and Kelling, Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, arranged an experiment testing the broken-window theory in 1969. Zimbardo arranged for an automobile with no license plates and the hood up to be parked idle in a Bronx neighbourhood and a second automobile, in the same condition, to be set up in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked within minutes of its abandonment. Zimbardo noted that the first "vandals" to arrive were a family – a father, mother and a young son – who removed the radiator and battery. Within twenty-four hours of its abandonment, everything of value had been stripped from the vehicle. After that, the car's windows were smashed in, parts torn, upholstery ripped, and children were using the car as a playground. At the same time, the vehicle sitting idle in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week until Zimbardo himself went up to the vehicle and deliberately smashed it with a sledgehammer. Soon after, people joined in for the destruction. Zimbardo observed that a majority of the adult "vandals" in both cases were primarily well dressed, Caucasian, clean-cut and seemingly respectable individuals. It is believed that, in a neighborhood such as the Bronx where the history of abandoned property and theft are more prevalent, vandalism occurs much more quickly, as the community generally seems apathetic. Similar events can occur in any civilized community when communal barriers—the sense of mutual regard and obligations of civility—are lowered by actions that suggest apathy.

New York City

Graffiti in the New York City Subway system in the early 1980s

In 1985, the New York City Transit Authority hired George L. Kelling, the author of Broken Windows, as a consultant. Kelling was later hired as a consultant to the Boston and the Los Angeles police departments.

One of Kelling's adherents, David L. Gunn, implemented policies and procedures based on the Broken Windows Theory, during his tenure as President of the New York City Transit Authority. One of his major efforts was to lead a campaign from 1984 to 1990 to rid graffiti from New York's subway system.

In 1990, William J. Bratton became head of the New York City Transit Police. Bratton was influenced by Kelling, describing him as his "intellectual mentor". In his role, he implemented a tougher stance on fare evasion, faster arrestee processing methods, and background checks on all those arrested.

After being elected Mayor of New York City in 1993, as a Republican, Rudy Giuliani hired Bratton as his police commissioner to implement similar policies and practices throughout the city. Giuliani heavily subscribed to Kelling and Wilson's theories. Such policies emphasized addressing crimes that negatively affect quality of life. In particular, Bratton directed the police to more strictly enforce laws against subway fare evasion, public drinking, public urination, and graffiti. Bratton also revived the New York City Cabaret Law, a previously dormant Prohibition era ban on dancing in unlicensed establishments. Throughout the late 1990s, NYPD shut down many of the city's acclaimed night spots for illegal dancing.

New York City Police Department officers circa 2005

According to a 2001 study of crime trends in New York City by Kelling and William Sousa, rates of both petty and serious crime fell significantly after the aforementioned policies were implemented. Furthermore, crime continued to decline for the following ten years. Such declines suggested that policies based on the Broken Windows Theory were effective.

However, other studies do not find a cause and effect relationship between the adoption of such policies and decreases in crime. The decrease may have been part of a broader trend across the United States. Other cities also experienced less crime, even though they had different police policies. Other factors, such as the 39% drop in New York City's unemployment rate, could also explain the decrease reported by Kelling and Sousa.

A 2017 study found that when the New York Police Department (NYPD) stopped aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes in late 2014 and early 2015 that civilian complaints of three major crimes (burglary, felony assault, and grand larceny) decreased (slightly with large error bars) during and shortly after sharp reductions in proactive policing. There was no statistically significant effect on other major crimes such as murder, rape, robbery, or grand theft auto. These results are touted as challenging prevailing scholarship as well as conventional wisdom on authority and legal compliance by implying that aggressively enforcing minor legal statutes incites more severe criminal acts.

Albuquerque

Albuquerque, New Mexico, instituted the Safe Streets Program in the late 1990s based on the Broken Windows Theory. The Safe Streets Program sought to deter and reduce unsafe driving and incidence of crime by saturating areas where high crime and crash rates were prevalent with law enforcement officers. Operating under the theory that American Westerners use roadways much in the same way that American Easterners use subways, the developers of the program reasoned that lawlessness on the roadways had much the same effect as it did on the New York City Subway. Effects of the program were reviewed by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) and were published in a case study. The methodology behind the program demonstrates the use of deterrence theory in preventing crime.

Lowell, Massachusetts

In 2005, Harvard University and Suffolk University researchers worked with local police to identify 34 "crime hot spots" in Lowell, Massachusetts. In half of the spots, authorities cleared trash, fixed streetlights, enforced building codes, discouraged loiterers, made more misdemeanor arrests, and expanded mental health services and aid for the homeless. In the other half of the identified locations, there was no change to routine police service.

The areas that received additional attention experienced a 20% reduction in calls to the police. The study concluded that cleaning up the physical environment was more effective than misdemeanor arrests and that increasing social services had no effect.

Netherlands

In 2007 and 2008, Kees Keizer and colleagues from the University of Groningen conducted a series of controlled experiments to determine if the effect of existing visible disorder (such as litter or graffiti) increased other crime such as theft, littering, or other antisocial behavior. They selected several urban locations, which they arranged in two different ways, at different times. In each experiment, there was a "disorder" condition in which violations of social norms as prescribed by signage or national custom, such as graffiti and littering, were clearly visible as well as a control condition where no violations of norms had taken place. The researchers then secretly monitored the locations to observe if people behaved differently when the environment was "disordered". Their observations supported the theory. The conclusion was published in the journal Science: "One example of disorder, like graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage another, like stealing."

Other effects

Real estate

Other side effects of better monitoring and cleaned up streets may well be desired by governments or housing agencies and the population of a neighborhood: broken windows can count as an indicator of low real estate value and may deter investors. It is recommended that real estate consider adopting the "Broken Windows Theory", because if they monitor the amount of minor transgressions in a specific area, they are most likely to experience a reduction in major transgressions as well. This may actually increase or decrease value in a house or apartment, depending on the area. Fixing windows is therefore also a step of real estate development, which may lead, whether it is desired or not, to gentrification. By reducing the amount of broken windows in the community, the inner cities would appear to be attractive to consumers with more capital. Ridding spaces like downtown New York and Chicago, notably notorious for criminal activity, of danger would draw in investment from consumers, increasing the city's economic status, providing a safe and pleasant image for present and future inhabitants.

Education

In education, the broken windows theory is used to promote order in classrooms and school cultures. The belief is that students are signaled by disorder or rule-breaking and that they in turn imitate the disorder. Several school movements encourage strict paternalistic practices to enforce student discipline. Such practices include language codes (governing slang, curse words, or speaking out of turn), classroom etiquette (sitting up straight, tracking the speaker), personal dress (uniforms, little or no jewelry), and behavioral codes (walking in lines, specified bathroom times).

From 2004 to 2006, Stephen B. Plank and colleagues from Johns Hopkins University conducted a correlational study to determine the degree to which the physical appearance of the school and classroom setting influence student behavior, particularly in respect to the variables concerned in their study: fear, social disorder, and collective efficacy. They collected survey data administered to 6th-8th students by 33 public schools in a large mid-Atlantic city. From analyses of the survey data, the researchers determined that the variables in their study are statistically significant to the physical conditions of the school and classroom setting. The conclusion, published in the American Journal of Education, was

...the findings of the current study suggest that educators and researchers should be vigilant about factors that influence student perceptions of climate and safety. Fixing broken windows and attending to the physical appearance of a school cannot alone guarantee productive teaching and learning, but ignoring them likely greatly increases the chances of a troubling downward spiral.

Statistical evidence

A 2015 meta-analysis of broken windows policing implementations found that disorder policing strategies, such as "hot spots policing" or problem-oriented policing, result in "consistent crime reduction effects across a variety of violent, property, drug, and disorder outcome measures". However, the authors noted that "aggressive order maintenance strategies that target individual disorderly behaviors do not generate significant crime reductions," pointing specifically to zero tolerance policing models that target singular behaviors such as public intoxication and remove disorderly individuals from the street via arrest. The authors recommend that police develop "community co-production" policing strategies instead of merely committing to increasing misdemeanor arrests.

Criticism

Other factors

Several studies have argued that many of the apparent successes of broken windows policing (such as New York City in the 1990s) were the result of other factors. They claim that the "broken windows theory" closely relates correlation with causality, a reasoning prone to fallacy. David Thacher, assistant professor of public policy and urban planning at the University of Michigan, stated in a 2004 paper:

[S]ocial science has not been kind to the broken windows theory. A number of scholars reanalyzed the initial studies that appeared to support it.... Others pressed forward with new, more sophisticated studies of the relationship between disorder and crime. The most prominent among them concluded that the relationship between disorder and serious crime is modest, and even that relationship is largely an artifact of more fundamental social forces.

C. R. Sridhar, in his article in the Economic and Political Weekly, also challenges the theory behind broken windows policing and the idea that the policies of William Bratton and the New York Police Department was the cause of the decrease of crime rates in New York City. The policy targeted people in areas with a significant amount of physical disorder and there appeared to be a causal relationship between the adoption of broken windows policing and the decrease in crime rate. Sridhar, however, discusses other trends (such as New York City's economic boom in the late 1990s) that created a "perfect storm" that contributed to the decrease of crime rate much more significantly than the application of the broken windows policy. Sridhar also compares this decrease of crime rate with other major cities that adopted other various policies and determined that the broken windows policy is not as effective.

In a 2007 study called "Reefer Madness" in the journal Criminology and Public Policy, Harcourt and Ludwig found further evidence confirming that mean reversion fully explained the changes in crime rates in the different precincts in New York in the 1990s. Further alternative explanations that have been put forward include the waning of the crack epidemic, unrelated growth in the prison population by the Rockefeller drug laws, and that the number of males from 16 to 24 was dropping regardless of the shape of the US population pyramid.

It has also been argued that rates of major crimes also dropped in many other US cities during the 1990s, both those that had adopted broken windows policing and those that had not. In the winter 2006 edition of the University of Chicago Law Review, Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig looked at the later Department of Housing and Urban Development program that rehoused inner-city project tenants in New York into more-orderly neighborhoods. The broken windows theory would suggest that these tenants would commit less crime once moved because of the more stable conditions on the streets. However, Harcourt and Ludwig found that the tenants continued to commit crime at the same rate.

Baltimore criminologist Ralph B. Taylor argues in his book that fixing windows is only a partial and short-term solution. His data supports a materialist view: changes in levels of physical decay, superficial social disorder, and racial composition do not lead to higher crime, but economic decline does. He contends that the example shows that real, long-term reductions in crime require that urban politicians, businesses, and community leaders work together to improve the economic fortunes of residents in high-crime areas.

Relationship between crime and disorder

According to a study by Robert J. Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush, the premise on which the theory operates, that social disorder and crime are connected as part of a causal chain, is faulty. They argue that a third factor, collective efficacy, "defined as cohesion among residents combined with shared expectations for the social control of public space," is the actual cause of varying crime rates that are observed in an altered neighborhood environment. They also argue that the relationship between public disorder and crime rate is weak.

Another tack was taken by a 2010 study questioning the legitimacy of the theory concerning the subjectivity of disorder as perceived by persons living in neighborhoods. It concentrated on whether citizens view disorder as a separate issue from crime or as identical to it. The study noted that crime cannot be the result of disorder if the two are identical, agreed that disorder provided evidence of "convergent validity" and concluded that broken windows theory misinterprets the relationship between disorder and crime.

Racial bias

Man getting arrested

Broken windows policing has sometimes become associated with zealotry, which has led to critics suggesting that it encourages discriminatory behaviour. Some campaigns such as Black Lives Matter have called for an end to broken windows policing. In 2016, a Department of Justice report argued that it had led the Baltimore Police Department discriminating against and alienating minority groups.

A central argument is that the concept of disorder is vague, and giving the police broad discretion to decide what disorder is will lead to discrimination. In Dorothy Roberts's article, "Foreword: Race, Vagueness, and the Social Meaning of Order Maintenance and Policing", she says that broken windows theory in practice leads to the criminalization of communities of color, who are typically disfranchised. She underscores the dangers of vaguely written ordinances that allows for law enforcers to determine who engages in disorderly acts, which, in turn, produce a racially skewed outcome in crime statistics. Similarly, Gary Stewart wrote, "The central drawback of the approaches advanced by Wilson, Kelling, and Kennedy rests in their shared blindness to the potentially harmful impact of broad police discretion on minority communities." It was seen by the authors, who worried that people would be arrested "for the 'crime' of being undesirable". According to Stewart, arguments for low-level police intervention, including the broken windows hypothesis, often act "as cover for racist behavior".

The theory has also been criticized for its unsound methodology and its manipulation of racialized tropes. Specifically, Bench Ansfield has shown that in their 1982 article, Wilson and Kelling cited only one source to prove their central contention that disorder leads to crime: the Philip Zimbardo vandalism study (see Precursor Experiments above). But Wilson and Kelling misrepresented Zimbardo's procedure and conclusions, dispensing with Zimbardo's critique of inequality and community anonymity in favor of the oversimplified claim that one broken window gives rise to "a thousand broken windows." Ansfield argues that Wilson and Kelling used the image of the crisis-ridden 1970s Bronx to stoke fears that "all cities would go the way of the Bronx if they didn’t embrace their new regime of policing." Wilson and Kelling manipulated the Zimbardo experiment to avail themselves of the racialized symbolism found in the broken windows of the Bronx.

Robert J. Sampson argues that based on common misconceptions by the masses, it is clearly implied that those who commit disorder and crime have a clear tie to groups suffering from financial instability and may be of minority status: "The use of racial context to encode disorder does not necessarily mean that people are racially prejudiced in the sense of personal hostility." He notes that residents make a clear implication of who they believe is causing the disruption, which has been termed as implicit bias. He further states that research conducted on implicit bias and stereotyping of cultures suggests that community members hold unrelenting beliefs of African-Americans and other disadvantaged minority groups, associating them with crime, violence, disorder, welfare, and undesirability as neighbors. A later study indicated that this contradicted Wilson and Kelling's proposition that disorder is an exogenous construct that has independent effects on how people feel about their neighborhoods.

In response, Kelling and Bratton have argued that broken windows policing does not discriminate against law-abiding communities of minority groups if implemented properly. They cited Disorder and Decline: Crime and the Spiral of Decay in American Neighborhoods, a study by Wesley Skogan at the University of California. The study, which surveyed 13,000 residents of large cities, concluded that different ethnic groups have similar ideas as to what they would consider to be "disorder".

Minority groups have tended to be targeted at higher rates by the Broken Windows style of policing. Broken Windows policies have been utilized more heavily in minority neighborhoods where low-income, poor infrastructure, and social disorder were widespread, causing minority groups to perceive that they were being racially profiled under Broken Windows policing.

Class bias

Homeless man talking with a police officer

A common criticism of broken windows policing is the argument that it criminalizes the poor and homeless. That is because the physical signs that characterize a neighborhood with the "disorder" that broken windows policing targets correlate with the socio-economic conditions of its inhabitants. Many of the acts that are considered legal but "disorderly" are often targeted in public settings and are not targeted when they are conducted in private. Therefore, those without access to a private space are often criminalized. Critics, such as Robert J. Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush of Harvard University, see the application of the broken windows theory in policing as a war against the poor, as opposed to a war against more serious crimes. Since minority groups in most cities are more likely to be poorer than the rest of the population, a bias against the poor would be linked to a racial bias.

According to Bruce D. Johnson, Andrew Golub, and James McCabe, the application of the broken windows theory in policing and policymaking can result in development projects that decrease physical disorder but promote undesired gentrification. Often, when a city is so "improved" in this way, the development of an area can cause the cost of living to rise higher than residents can afford, which forces low-income people out of the area. As the space changes, the middle and upper classes, often white, begin to move into the area, resulting in the gentrification of urban, poor areas. The local residents are affected negatively by such an application of the broken windows theory and end up evicted from their homes as if their presence indirectly contributed to the area's problem of "physical disorder".

Popular press

In More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000), economist John Lott, Jr. examined the use of the broken windows approach as well as community- and problem-oriented policing programs in cities over 10,000 in population, over two decades. He found that the impacts of these policing policies were not very consistent across different types of crime. Lott's book has been subject to criticism, but other groups support Lott's conclusions.

In the 2005 book Freakonomics, coauthors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner confirm and question the notion that the broken windows theory was responsible for New York's drop in crime, saying "the pool of potential criminals had dramatically shrunk". Levitt had in the Quarterly Journal of Economics attributed that possibility to the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade, which correlated with a decrease, one generation later, in the number of delinquents in the population at large.

In his 2012 book Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society, Jim Manzi writes that of the randomized field trials conducted in criminology, only nuisance abatement per broken windows theory has been successfully replicated.

Community policing

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_policing 

Police officers interact with the public in Des Moines, Iowa, during Police Week 2010.

Community policing, or community-oriented policing (COP), is a strategy of policing that focuses on building ties and working closely with members of the communities. A formal definition states:

Community policing is a philosophy of full service personalized policing, where the same officer patrols and works in the same area on a permanent basis, from a decentralized place, working in a proactive partnership with citizens to identify and solve problems.

—Bertus Ferreira

The central goal of community policing is for the police to build relationships with the community through interactions with local agencies and members of the public, creating partnerships and strategies for reducing crime and disorder. Although community policing mostly targets low-level crime and disorder, the broken windows theory proposes that this can reduce more serious crime as well.

Community policing is related to problem-oriented policing and intelligence-led policing, and contrasts with reactive policing strategies which were predominant in the late 20th century. It does not eliminate the need for reactive policing, although successful prevention can reduce the need for the latter. Many police forces have teams that focus specifically on community policing, such as Neighbourhood Policing Teams in the United Kingdom, which are separate from the more centralized units that respond to emergencies.

The overall assessment of community-oriented policing is positive, as both officers and community members attest to its effectiveness in reducing crime and raising the sense of security in a community.

History

Robert Peel's ideas about policing are sometimes considered a precursor to modern community policing.

Some authors have traced the core values of community policing to certain original 1829 Peelian Principles, most notably John Alderson, the former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall Police. These included the ideas that the police needed to seek "the co-operation of the public" and prioritize crime prevention. The term "community policing" came into use in the late 20th century and, then, only as a response to a preceding philosophy of police organization.

In the early 20th century, the rise of automobiles, telecommunications and suburbanization transformed how the police operated. Police forces moved to using a reactive strategy versus a proactive approach, focusing on answering emergency calls as quickly as possible and relying on motor vehicle patrols to deter crime. Some police forces such as the Chicago Police Department began rotating officers between different neighborhoods as a measure to prevent corruption, and, as a result, foot patrols became rare. These changes significantly altered the nature of police presence in many neighborhoods.

By the 1960s, many countries such as the United States were looking for ways to repair relations between police forces and racial minorities. For example, in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed a Blue Ribbon committee to study the apparent distrust with the police by many community members, especially along racial lines. The resulting report, the President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice suggested the development of a new type of police officer which would act as a community liaison and work to build bridges between law enforcement and minority populations. Furthermore, the Kansas City preventive patrol experiment provided evidence that aimless motor patrols were not an effective deterrent to crime. Similarly, by 1981, a study by the US-based Police Foundation suggested that police officers spent so much time on response duties and in cars that they had become isolated from their communities. In response to some of these problems, many police departments in the United States began experimenting with what would become known as "community policing".

Research by Michigan criminal justice academics and practitioners started being published as early as the 1980s. As a professor of criminal justice, Bob Trajanowcz in the late 1990s influenced many future law enforcement leaders on how to implement elements of community policing.  One experiment in Flint, Michigan, involved foot patrol officers be assigned to a specific geographic area to help reduce crime in hot spots. Community-oriented policing was promoted by the Clinton Administration. The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act established the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) within the Justice Department and provided funding to promote community policing.

Kenneth Peak has argued that community policing in the United States has evolved through three generations: innovation (1979 to 1986), diffusion (1987 to 1994) and institutionalization (1995 to present day). The innovation period occurred following the civil unrest of the 1960s, in large part as an attempt to identify alternatives to the reactive methods developed in mid-century. This era was also saw the development of such programs as the broken windows theory and problem-oriented policing. The diffusion era followed, in which larger departments began to integrate aspects of community policing, often through grants that initiated specialized units. Lastly, the institutionalization era introduced mass application of community policing programs, in not only large departments but also smaller and more rural ones.

Method

Police officers and PCSOs of West Midlands Police prepare to go on cycle patrol. Community meetings were used to decide which areas needed patrolling the most.

 

Police in Strasbourg, France. Community policing movements have led to a revival of foot patrols.

Many community-oriented police structures focus on assigning officers to a specific area called a “beat”, those officers become familiar with that area through a process of “beat profiling.” The officers are then taught how to design specific patrol strategies to deal with the types of crime that are experienced in that beat.

These ideas are implemented in a multi-pronged approach using a variety of aspects, such as broadening the duties of the police officer and individualizing the practices to the community they're policing; refocusing police efforts to face-to-face interactions in smaller patrol areas with an emphasized goal of preventing criminal activity instead of responding to it; solving problems using input from the community they're policing; and, finally, making an effort to increase service-oriented positive interactions with police.

Common methods of community-policing include:

• Encouraging the community to help prevent crime by providing advice, giving talks at schools, encouraging neighborhood watch groups, and a variety of other techniques.
• Increased use of foot or bicycle patrols.
• Increased officer accountability to the communities they are supposed to serve.
• Creating teams of officers to carry out community policing in designated neighborhoods.
• Clear communication between the police and the communities about their objectives and strategies.
• Partnerships with other organizations such as government agencies, community members, nonprofit service providers, private businesses and the media.
• Decentralizing the police authority, allowing more discretion amongst lower-ranking officers, and more initiative expected from them.

Comparison with traditional policing

Although all societies incorporate some mechanisms of social control, "policing" as we understand it today is a very particular mechanism of control. "Traditional policing" is used to describe policing styles that were predominant before modern community policing movements, or in police forces which have not adopted them. The response-centred style has also been called "fire brigade policing" in the UK.  In countries with a tradition of policing by consent, the term "traditional policing" can be misleading. In those cases, community policing could be seen as a restoration of an earlier ideology, which had been overshadowed by reactive policing after the rise of automobiles and telecommunications.

The goal of traditional policing is to protect law-abiding citizens from criminals. As Jauregui argues, it reflects a "popular desire for justice and order through any means necessary." They do this by identifying and apprehending criminals while gathering enough evidence to convict them. Traditional beat officers' focus on duty is to respond to incidents swiftly, and clear emergency calls as quickly as possible. Many officers working busy shifts only have time to respond to and clear emergency calls. This type of policing does not stop or reduce crime significantly; it is simply a temporary fix to a chronic problem where officers are often called to return to the same issue and individuals.^[36][22]

In contrast, community policing's main goal is to assist the public in establishing and maintaining a safe, orderly social environment. While apprehending criminals is one important goal of community policing, it is not necessarily the most important goal. Community policing is concerned with solving the crimes that the community is concerned about by working with and gaining support from the community. The most effective solutions include dialogue between police, government resources, citizens, and local business to address the problems affecting the community.^[1] Police communicate with the community in variety of ways, including polls or surveys, town meetings, call-in programs, and meetings with interest groups. They use these connections to understand what the community wants out of its police officers and what the community is willing to do to solve its crime problem.

The structure of the community policing organization differs in that police assets are refocused with the goals of specific, written rules to give more creative problem-solving techniques to the police officer to provide alternatives to traditional law enforcement.^[30]

In Nordic countries and Camden, NJ

Journalist Ryan Cooper^[37] described law enforcement in Nordic countries in terms that seem consistent with community policing. In 2013 the city of Camden, NJ, with support from the New Jersey state government, disbanded their city police and hired some of the officers back at lower pay into new Camden County Police Department, following examples in Nordic countries.^[38] Camden had previously had appallingly high crime rates, which have reportedly declined dramatically since the change, presumably because more people are more likely to report crime and cooperate with law enforcement.

In high conflict zones like Afghanistan

D. Scott Mann,^[39] retired U.S. Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel, claims that his troops made substantial progress against insurgents in places like Afghanistan and Columbia by embedding themselves in local, remote communities and working hard to actually protect the locals from insurgents. They were not resisted when they initially arrive, but they were also not initially welcomed. After locals saw Mann's special forces working to understand their concerns and bleeding with them during attacks by insurgents, the locals begin to trust Mann's special forces and provide information about the insurgents that helped reduce the level of violence and make law enforcement easier.^[40]

Community alienation

The experience of community alienation among police officers is closely tied to the experience of mastery, the state of mind in which an individual feels autonomous and experiences confidence in their ability, skill, and knowledge to control or influence external events.^[41] Community policing requires departments to flatten their organizational pyramid and place even more decision-making and discretion in the hands of line officers. As the level of community alienation or isolation that officers experience increases, there will be a corresponding decrease in officers' sense of mastery in carrying out their expanded discretionary role. Second, a strong sense of community integration for police officers would seem to be vital to the core community policing focus of proactive law enforcement. Proactive enforcement is usually defined as the predisposition of police officers to be actively committed to crime prevention, community problem-solving, and a more open, dynamic quality-oriented law enforcement-community partnership.^[4][5][42]

A lack of community support resulted in an increased sense of alienation and a greater degree of apathy among police officers.^[43][44][45] A lack of community support and working in a larger populated community was associated with an increased sense of alienation and a greater degree of inactivity among police officers.^[46] An increased sense of alienation resulted in a greater degree of negative feelings and lethargy among police officers. The more police officers felt socially isolated from the community they served, the more they withdrew and the more negative they felt towards its citizens.^[4][47]

Evaluation

Traditionally, determining whether police or policies are effective or not can be done by evaluating the crime rate for a geographic area. A crime rate in the United States is determined using the FBI's "Uniform Crime Reports" (UCR) or "National Incident-Based Reporting System" (NIBRS) as well as the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ "National Crime Victimization Survey" (NCVS).^[48][49]

Community policing is more complicated than simply comparing crime rates and there is no universally-accepted criteria for evaluating community policing. However, there are some structures that are commonly used. One possible way to determine whether or not community policing is effective in an area is for officers and key members of the community to set a specific mission and goals when starting out. Once specific goals are set, participation at every level is essential in obtaining commitment and achieving goals. Street-level officers, supervisors, executives, and the entire community should feel the goals represent what they want their police department to accomplish.^[29]

The U.S. federal government continues to provide support for incorporating community policing into local law enforcement practices through funding of research such as through the National Center for Community Policing at Michigan State University,^[50] small COPS grants to local agencies, and technical assistance.^[51]

The Center For Evidence-Based Crime Policy in George Mason University identifies the following randomized controlled trials on community policing as very rigorous.^[52]

Criticisms

Criminologists have raised several concerns vis-a-vis community policing and its implementation. On the broadest conceptual level, many legal scholars have highlighted that the term "community," at the heart of "community policing," is in itself ambiguous.^[53] Without a universal definition of the word, it is difficult to define what "community policing" should look like.^[54][55]

Others have remained skeptical of the political ambition behind community policing initiatives. For example, in 1984 Peter Waddington cautioned that the "largely uncritical acceptance with which [the notion of community policing] has been welcomed is itself a danger. Any proposal, however attractive, should be subjected to careful and skeptical scrutiny."^[56] In particular, Waddington voiced concern that community policing was merely a restoration of the "bobby on the beat" concept, which had nostalgic appeal because it was less impersonal than the officer "flashing past" in a police car. He said that the former was a "romantic delusion", because "there was never a time when the police officer was everyone's friend, and there will never be such a time in the future." He also believed that order could only be maintained by the community itself, and not by the police alone. Similarly, C. B. Klockars and David Bayley both argue that community policing is unlikely to bring fundamental change to how police officers work, with Klockars calling it "mainly a rhetorical device".^[57][56] Unlike Klockars, Steven Herbert believe that community policing is proposing a fundamental change to policing, but argues that it would be a difficult one to achieve. He argues the progressive and democratic ethos of shared governance inherent in community policing runs counter to central elements in police culture and more widespread understandings of crime and punishment.^[58] Charles P. McDowell argued in 1993 that because community policing was a radical departure from existing ideology, implementing it would take time.^[56]

Yet another set of criticisms revolves around the potential efficacy of community policing. David Bayley has argued that enacting community policing policies may lead to a reduction in crime control effectiveness, maintenance of order in the face of violence, increase in bureaucratic and governmental power over community affairs, increases in unequal treatment, and an erosion of constitutional rights.^[59] According to Stenson,^[60] there is a major dilemma within community policing: when practicing community policing, police officers have the tendency of getting too involved with trying to institute "particularistic community normative standards". This in turn could be problematic, in that it could entice corruption or vigilantism.^[61]