This week’s readings had a focus on the broken-windows theory of law enforcement. I think this is an important issue to address, because there is the idea that this type of policing is improving the way of life for everyone and also that laws like these that address lower-level crimes are equally enforced for all members of a given population. However, we have seen, especially for anti-vagrancy laws, that this is not the case. Often for laws like no drinking in public, urination in public, loitering or sleeping on public transit, the enforcement is very subjective, with emphasis on criminalizing acts that are done by homeless people, for instance. This allows for gaps in the system to target people based on housing status, gender, sexuality, race, and other classifications that allow for minority marginalization. To address this unequal enforcement of the law, we should first bring attention to the fact that these policies may have been designed to improve the quality of life for all, but are instead causing stark divisions in our society.

Question: How can we modify zero tolerance policing to maintain a society in which personal biases and prejudices are not as easily allowed to affect law enforcement?