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<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=257205622-21032009><FONT color=#000080
size=4>There is a lot of critique of the theory as well.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=257205622-21032009><FONT color=#000080
size=4></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=257205622-21032009><FONT color=#000080
size=4>KZ</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=257205622-21032009><FONT color=#000080
size=4><A
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#Critics_of_the_theory">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#Critics_of_the_theory</A></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><SPAN class=257205622-21032009>
<H2><SPAN class=mw-headline>Critics of the theory</SPAN></H2>
<P>Critics point to the fact that rates of major crimes also dropped in many
other U.S. cities during the 1990s, both those that had adopted "zero tolerance"
policies and those that had not.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-8><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-8"><SPAN>[</SPAN>9<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP></P>
<P>Other research has pointed out that the "zero tolerance" effect on serious
crime is difficult to disentangle from other initiatives happening at around the
same time in New York. These initiatives were 1) the police reforms described
above, 2) programs that moved over 500,000 people into jobs from welfare at a
time of economic buoyancy,<SUP class="noprint Inline-Template"><SPAN
title="The material in the vicinity of this tag needs to be fact-checked with the cited source(s) since July 2007"
style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">[<I><A title=Wikipedia:Verifiability
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability">verification
needed</A></I>]</SPAN></SUP> and 3) housing vouchers that enabled poor families
to move to better neighborhoods.<SUP class="noprint Inline-Template"><SPAN
title="The material in the vicinity of this tag needs to be fact-checked with the cited source(s) since July 2007"
style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">[<I><A title=Wikipedia:Verifiability
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability">verification
needed</A></I>]</SPAN></SUP></P>
<P>Alternative explanations that have been put forward include:</P>
<UL>
<LI>The waning of the crack epidemic.<SUP class=reference
id=cite_ref-SLATE1_9-0><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-SLATE1-9"><SPAN>[</SPAN>10<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP></LI>
<LI>Unrelated growth in the prison population due to <A
title="Rockefeller drug laws"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rockefeller_drug_laws">Rockefeller drug
laws</A>.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-SLATE1_9-1><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-SLATE1-9"><SPAN>[</SPAN>10<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP></LI>
<LI>That the number of males aged 16-24 was dropping regardless due to
demographic changes and that abortion became legal.<SUP class=reference
id=cite_ref-FREAK_10-0><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-FREAK-10"><SPAN>[</SPAN>11<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP></LI></UL>
<P>David Thacher (assistant professor of public policy and urban planning at the
<A title="University of Michigan"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Michigan">University of
Michigan</A>) stated in a 2004 paper that:<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-11><A
title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-11"><SPAN>[</SPAN>12<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP></P>
<BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>"...social science has not been kind to the broken windows theory. A number
of scholars reanalyzed the initial studies that appeared to support it ...
Others pressed forward with new, more sophisticated studies of the
relationship between disorder and crime. The most prominent among them
concluded that the relationship between disorder and serious crime is modest,
and even that relationship is largely an artifact of more fundamental social
forces."</P></BLOCKQUOTE>
<P>Thacher goes on to state that: "These challenges to the broken windows theory
have not yet discredited order maintenance policing with policymakers or the
public."</P>
<P>In the best-seller <I><A title="More Guns, Less Crime"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime">More Guns, Less
Crime</A></I> (University of Chicago Press, 2000), <A title=Economist
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist">economist</A> <A class=mw-redirect
title="John Lott, Jr." href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lott,_Jr.">John
Lott, Jr.</A> examined the use of the broken windows approach as well as
community and problem oriented policing programs in cities over 10,000 in
population over two decades. He found that the impact of these policing policies
were not very consistent across different types of crime. He described the
pattern as almost "random". For the broken windows approach, Lott found that the
approach was actually associated with murder and auto theft rising and rapes and
larceny falling. Increased arrest rates, affirmative action policies for hiring
police, and right-to-carry laws were much more important in explaining the
changes in crime rates.</P>
<P>In the best-seller <I><A title=Freakonomics
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freakonomics">Freakonomics</A></I>, <A
title=Economist href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economist">economist</A> <A
class=mw-redirect title="Steven D. Levitt"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_D._Levitt">Steven D. Levitt</A> and
co-author <A title="Stephen J. Dubner"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_J._Dubner">Stephen J. Dubner</A> cast
doubt on the notion that the Broken Windows theory was wholly responsible for
New York's drop in crime. He instead noticed that years before the 1990s,
abortion was legalized. Women who were least able to raise kids (the poor,
addicts and unstable) were able to get abortions, so the number of children
being born in broken families was decreasing. Most crimes committed in New York
are committed by 16-24 year old males; when this demographic decreased in number
the crime rate followed.</P>
<P>Refutations of their analysis appeared in <I><A
title="The Wall Street Journal"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wall_Street_Journal">The Wall Street
Journal</A></I><SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-WSJ1_12-0><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-WSJ1-12"><SPAN>[</SPAN>13<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP>
and <I><A title="The Economist"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist">The Economist</A></I>.<SUP
class=reference id=cite_ref-Economist1_13-0><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-Economist1-13"><SPAN>[</SPAN>14<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP>
The former quotes economists at the <A title="Federal Reserve Bank"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Reserve_Bank">Federal Reserve
Bank</A> of Boston, who said, "[t]here are no statistical grounds for believing
that the hypothetical youths who were aborted as fetuses would have been more
likely to commit crimes had they reached maturity than the actual youths who
developed from fetuses and carried to term."<SUP class=reference
id=cite_ref-WSJ1_12-1><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-WSJ1-12"><SPAN>[</SPAN>13<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP>
Also, murder among the first post-<A title="Roe v. Wade"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade">Roe v. Wade</A> cohort was, in
some states, 3.1 times higher than the last group born before legalized
abortion.<SUP class=reference id=cite_ref-SAILER1_14-0><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-SAILER1-14"><SPAN>[</SPAN>15<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP>
These data show crime increasing after the advent of legalized abortion, thus
contradicting Levitt's and Dubner's conclusions. Furthermore, increased rates of
incarceration accounts for some of the decline in crime rates discussed by
Levitt and Dubner; the vicissitudes of the <A title="Crack cocaine"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crack_cocaine">crack cocaine</A> business
also account for part of the rise and fall of crime rates during the period
under discussion.<SUP class="noprint Template-Fact"><SPAN
title="This claim needs references to reliable sources since July 2008"
style="WHITE-SPACE: nowrap">[<I><A title="Wikipedia:Citation needed"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed">citation
needed</A></I>]</SPAN></SUP></P>
<P>In the Winter 2006 edition of the <A title="University of Chicago"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Chicago">University of
Chicago</A> <I>Law Review</I>, <A title="Bernard Harcourt"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Harcourt">Bernard Harcourt</A> and <A
title="Jens Ludwig" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jens_Ludwig">Jens
Ludwig</A> looked at the later <A class=mw-redirect
title="Department of Housing and Urban Development"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Department_of_Housing_and_Urban_Development">Department
of Housing and Urban Development</A> program that re-housed inner-city project
tenants in New York into more orderly neighborhoods.<SUP class=reference
id=cite_ref-15><A title=""
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fixing_Broken_Windows#cite_note-15"><SPAN>[</SPAN>16<SPAN>]</SPAN></A></SUP>
The Broken Windows theory would suggest that these tenants would commit less
crime once moved, due to the more stable conditions on the streets. Harcourt and
Ludwig found instead that the tenants continued to commit crime at the same
rate.</P>
<P>In a further study in 2007 called "Reefer Madness" in the journal
<I>Criminology and Public Policy</I>, Harcourt and Ludwig find further evidence
confirming that "<A title="Mean reversion"
href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_reversion">mean reversion</A>" fully
explained the changes in crime rates in the different precincts in New York
during the 1990s.</P></SPAN></DIV><BR>
<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader lang=en-us dir=ltr align=left>
<HR tabIndex=-1>
<FONT face=Tahoma size=2><B>From:</B> discussion-bounces@charlesvillage.info
[mailto:discussion-bounces@charlesvillage.info] <B>On Behalf Of </B>Jonathan
Wetmiller<BR><B>Sent:</B> Saturday, March 21, 2009 2:50 PM<BR><B>To:</B> Charles
Village Discussion List; Charles Village Chat List<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
[Discussion] Study of "Broken Windows" theory of
crimeprevention<BR></FONT><BR></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
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<TBODY>
<TR>
<TD vAlign=top>Interesting. There was also an article in The
Economist a few weeks ago about a series of experiments in the
Netherlands that reached similar
conclusions:<BR><BR>http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12630201&CFID=48064737&CFTOKEN=30048721<BR><BR>-Jon<BR><BR>---
On <B>Fri, 3/20/09, Emil Volcheck <I><volcheck@acm.org></I></B>
wrote:<BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: rgb(16,16,255) 2px solid"><BR>From:
Emil Volcheck <volcheck@acm.org><BR>Subject: [Discussion] Study of
"Broken Windows" theory of crime prevention<BR>To: "Charles Village
Discussion List" <discussion@charlesvillage.info>, "Charles
Village Chat List" <chat@charlesvillage.info><BR>Date: Friday,
March 20, 2009, 7:27 PM<BR><BR>
<DIV class=plainMail>Hello, neighbors,<BR><BR>I recommend this story in
the online edition of the Boston Globe<BR>which reports on a study in
Lowell, MA that tested the "broken<BR>windows" theory of crime
prevention using a controlled experiment:<BR><BR><A
href="http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/08/breakthrough_on_broken_windows/"
target=_blank>http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/02/08/breakthrough_on_broken_windows/</A><BR>.<BR><BR>--Emil<BR><BR>--
<BR>Emil Volcheck<BR><A href="/mc/compose?to=volcheck@acm.org"
ymailto="mailto:volcheck@acm.org">volcheck@acm.org</A><BR><A
href="http://EmilVolcheck.com/"
target=_blank>http://EmilVolcheck.com/</A><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>Discussion
mailing list<BR><A href="/mc/compose?to=Discussion@charlesvillage.info"
ymailto="mailto:Discussion@charlesvillage.info">Discussion@charlesvillage.info</A><BR><A
href="http://charlesvillage.info/mailman/listinfo/discussion_charlesvillage.info"
target=_blank>http://charlesvillage.info/mailman/listinfo/discussion_charlesvillage.info</A><BR></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><BR></BODY></HTML>