Broken windows, when it first came about, was a logical solution to crime as it paid attention to the human instinct to follow the influence of their peers and more inadvertently, their environment. I believe there to validity in the fact that humans will be more likely to act out in areas of chaos rather than those of order. However, I think broken windows policing has become an enemy to society as soon as it began to border along racial lines. A larger number of enforcements was put into black and Hispanic communities over white ones. This made it so almost all of the arrests for minor infractions were of people of color. As soon as this became the norm, people of color also became the majority of people arrested for minor infractions in predominantly white neighborhoods. Broken windows policing was further ruined with the inauguration of police quotas. This, obviously, would turn the public against the police force — as harmful arrests were made for harmless people.
Had broken windows policing focused on stopping crimes that could have actually led to further crimes, among ALL people, without the pressure of quotas… maybe it could have become a system we could all agree on.
Laura James
