Author: Henry Burby (page 1 of 1)

I have been against the practices of broken windows policing for several years. I knew that it was implemented badly and that it facilitated discrimination. However, reading the Atlantic article and talking with Bob Gangi last week have convinced me that broken windows policy is based on fundamentally flawed reasoning, and that it cannot be improved.

First, it assumes that healthy communities depend on public order, which is based on strict obedience to the laws and assumed mores of  the area. Public shows of disorder, even if they are not technically illegal, cause a slippery slide to total anarchy and chaos. However, not all social standards apply equally in all neighborhoods, and slight disorder, such as teenagers walking in groups or playing music, can be both safe and nonviolent. Enforcing order to the exclusion of all else is not always necessary or constructive. Also, it may be impossible for a police officer to tell the difference between safe and unsafe behaviors, which is made more dangerous when the officer is granted deadly force.

Second, broken windows policy assumes total agency on the part of the urban poor, and ignores underlying circumstances and social context, which influence which options are available to them. The decision to jump the turnstile is always in the hands of the actor. However, when faced with the necessity of getting home without money for a fare, the law becomes less important. Similarly, when someone doesn’t believe they can achieve a good life through normal channels, breaking the law may seem like the only option. Perhaps crime and disorder can only be prevented by altering the circumstances which contribute to them. Broken and unfair systems can propped up by crime fighting, but they cannot change until their causes are evaluated.

Third, the broken windows mindset applies the slippery slope idea unequally. It assumes that people will do whatever they want if they believe that they will not be punished. However, if this is true with the poor, shouldn’t it be true with the police themselves? Could roughing up a shoplifter be the first step towards greater brutality? Every person and case are unique, but both possibilities are dangerous, and if we admit that our axioms cannot be applied equally to everyone, they should be questioned.

Finally, where arrests are emphasized over actual enforcement, the individual judgements of cops are ignored. The quota system assumes not only that citizens are guilty before they are proven innocent, but that they should be treated as guilty before they have done anything wrong. This is the essence of the broken windows concept. The quota system is not an example of poor execution. Broken windows cannot exist without the quota system, or something like it. Aside from being unfair, quotas are a waste of police time and public money, and do more harm than good.

Henry Burby

Move NYC seems to be an excellent first step in the vital process of securing funding for New York city transit. No one can deny that our current transit system is overstressed, and as our population continues to grow, improvements will become even more necessary. I am intrigued by the idea of new train lines and even those awesome foot bridges we all saw displayed. The possibility of walking from New Jersey to Manhattan would be a game changer in the way local residents think about commuting, and allow greater access between New York City and Hoboken, which is almost a sixth borough at this point. (It probably won’t herald in a new dawn of peace and cooperation between the two states, but if there was ever a time when the costal centers needed to hang together, this is it.)

However, restructuring our toll collection can only be the start. Critics predict that the new system could discourage car use, which could increase subway dependence before repairs are possible. This could mean a few years of rough transit and very crowded train cars. Though, in the long run, our tech will simply have to be rehauled, it might end up happening during a spike in transit use due to new toll policies. Of course, as populations grow, we may end up in an identical situation a few years down the road, and without Move NYC, the city will have no plan to finance repairs. If a transit meltdown is coming, “Gridlock Sam’s” proposal may be worth a few years of uncomfortable service. Of course, the main issue is simply the possibility that much of the funds raised by the plan will “disappear” into the tangled, corrupt, bureaucratic sludge that is local government. There would need to be a plan to safeguard the funds raised, and to ensure that they are not high jacked by rival projects. A third quibble of mine is that Move NYC makes no mention of reduced car pool rates, which I think would incentivize commuters to use their cars more efficiently.

All things considered, Move NYC is a clear improvement of the current system, and will provide the kinds of funds which NYC desperately needs. Given the unlikelihood of federal support during this administration, especially considering our sanctuary city status, we need funds NOW, and this plan will get them.

Caro puts it well when he claims that “it is only possible to say that [New York without Moses] would have been different.” After all he did to leave his mark on the very structures which make up and supply the city, we can’t know what the city would have looked like without Moses. Ultimately, he remade NYC in his image, changing it into the type of city he wished it to be. Though all his many actions affected everything around them, I will work from a single example, his reshaping of the way New Yorkers get around. Through extensive roadbuilding and seizure of funds which could have gone to the transit system, Moses set the city on the path to dependance on cars, rather then mass transit. Whether this is a good or bad decision is somewhat subjective, but the character of the city was undeniably altered by it. Admittedly, NYC was growing fast at the time, and it is possible that many of these changes would have been made eventually, and probably less effectively without Moses, but this assumption may be a product of the idea that these structures are necessary, simply because citizens are now used to them. This is even more true because of Moses’ national power, and his influence over all later urban development plans. Perhaps the idea of an affective train system allowing travel to long island and new jersey is hard to picture because New York and all subsequent US cities relied on the car.