The consensus seems to be that it probably did contribute somewhat to less crime, but not as much as early proponents claimed it did. I hadn't heard of this research before
In Chicago, the researchers Robert Sampson and Stephen Raudenbush analyzed what makes people perceive social disorder. They found that if two neighborhoods had exactly the same amount of graffiti and litter and loitering, people saw more disorder, more broken windows, in neighborhoods with more African-Americans.
The broken window theory was acted on by William Bracken in New York and was put forward as why crime there dropped. The only problem was it dropped almost across the country.
ReplyDelete