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  • Essay / The Broken Windows Theory and Police Strategy

    Before the development of theories focused on the lack of civil order in communities, law enforcement tended to focus more on serious crimes. Police forces, for example, would deal with crimes considered most serious and serious for the victim, such as rape, murder, theft, etc. However, the broken windows theory, which was an academic proposal by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982, took a different view. This theory posited that violent crimes were the consequence of a long chain of events. According to theorists, crime is the result of disorder and if disorder were removed it would significantly reduce the rate of serious crime. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayFurthermore, the theory posits that the existence of disorder in society arouses fear in the minds of citizens who are usually convinced that their neighborhoods are generally unsafe. . Withdrawal from the community ultimately eliminates social control, which once controlled crime. So disorder leads to crime, and crime leads to more crime and more disorder. Research shows that there are two types of disorder that can cause crime in society:; physical disorder and social disorder. Physical unrest manifests itself in vacant buildings, broken windows, abandoned vehicles and dirty streets. Social disorder, on the other hand, manifests itself in practices such as noisy neighborhoods and groups of young people gathered on street corners. There is a fine line between criminality and disorder, as some experts classify acts such as drug dealing and prostitution as disorder while others classify them as crimes. The broken windows theory is considered an effective crime-fighting strategy. This is mainly because it is much easier to control disorder than to tackle the more serious harm caused by serious crime. A real-life example of broken windows policing occurred in New York City in the 1990s. The policing strategy used was to focus on small offenses such as jumping a turnstile on the highway and smoking marijuana while audience. This strategic policing approach has had remarkable success as the city has seen a significant drop in the crime rate. However, crime has also declined overall in the United States, even in areas where this policing strategy has not been deployed. This has therefore given rise to controversy over the positive and negative aspects of this law enforcement approach. The benefits of using broken windows theory include reducing crime rates and data-driven approaches. Tackling small problems generally helps reduce the crime rate in society, as the New York case study proves. Additionally, some criminals typically arrested for misdemeanors end up being wanted for the more serious crimes they committed. This leads to the conclusion that indeed, eliminating disorder in the community has a positive impact in terms of reducing the crime rate in neighborhoods. This theory has also led to statistical approaches to crime prevention. Many police departments now allocate funds for the broken windows approach to crime prevention. In this approach, police generally use available data in addition to what they observe on the streets to..