On paper, broken windows policing sounds like a good idea. By preventing neighborhoods from appearing rundown and in need of repair, policing minor crimes heavily can foster a sense of community that ends up self-regulating its population. However, in reality this method led to a deepening distrust of police by the communities they served, caused among other things by the lop-sided rates of arrest in the black and hispanic communities. Very often police would arrest black and hispanic offenders for crimes that would only very rarely lead to an arrest for a white offender.
As a result of this, the intended benefits of broken windows policing were hugely negated by the antagonism that developed between the police and the communities they patrolled. Instead of being able to have less of a police presence in areas kept in check by locals, more police were needed to patrol areas looking for minor offenders. The police being seen as only going after minority offenders, which statistically was much more likely then them going after white offenders, made it much harder for them to effectively combat crime. When the police are seen as the enemy, no one wants to help them, and this makes it harder for police to find those responsible for major crimes.
Broken windows, while seemingly a good idea, did not account for the discriminatory policing that it would eventually lead to. As a result of this, broken windows lead to a worsening of the relationship between the community and police.
-Jon Baumann
