For Kelling and Wilson of the Atlantic, if a window is broken, fix it right away to prove that somebody actually cares. But for Bob Gangi, what he opposes is the idea that if a window is broken, punish the breaker to the umpteenth degree.
This is why I am not surprised by Gangi’s reaction to this version of broken windows. Of course it leads to broken trust between the enforcers and the enforced. Why put trust in those who make it a policy (and put quotas on it!) to overreact? Add a bit of inherent bias and prejudice and you’re bound to get some people who say, “This is !@#$ed up.”
Gangi did not strike me as someone who proposed a solution, rather just a manifestation of a reaction. I agree with him; quota/broken windows policing doesn’t work. But his lack of knowledge of the history of the broken windows philosophy and how it devolved to what it is today was a clear sign to me that this problem was bigger than broken windows or no broken windows.
It’s about basic humanity. You can’t make a law that tells people to be good. No matter how much money you put into it or whatever plan you draw up, human beings tend to resist any non-organic method of generating solidarity. We have too many Utopia-turned-Dystopia novels to not understand this by now.
Before we have a conversation about getting rid of broken windows, we need to have a conversation about what our policies are trying to do: fix society or aid the natural goodness it tends toward all on its own?
Peter Fields
