Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order And Reducing Crime In Our Communities [Paperback]

George L. Kelling (Author), Catherine M. Coles (Author)

Book Description

Release date: January 20, 1998

With stories of crime reduction in cities from New York to Seattle, "Fixing Broken Windows" demonstrates that controlling disorderly behavior is the key to preventing serious crimes. "A convincing case for trying community policing and order maintenance . . . crime-control strategies that make sense".--"Richmond Times Dispatch".

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Broken windows breed disorder. So said George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson in a groundbreaking article for the Atlantic Monthly in 1982. Now Kelling returns with Catherine M. Coles to call community policing and the aggressive protection of public spaces the best crime-control options available. Three-strikes-and-you're-out is fine as far as it goes, say the authors, but it focuses on punishment rather than prevention. Kelling and Coles make sensible suggestions for restoring law and order to the places where they no longer seem to exist. Their argument is aided immensely by real-life examples of how their "broken windows" strategy has reduced crime where it's been tried. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

This book offers a dry but convincing argument for community policing and other approaches to civic order that pay attention to small incivilities like aggressive panhandling and fare-beating. The book's title derives from an influential 1982 Atlantic Monthly article by criminologist Kelling and James Q. Wilson, which argued that obvious neighborhood decay?like unattended broken windows?furthered criminal behavior. The authors cite several factors?including the rise of individualism, the decriminalization of drunkenness and the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill?that contribute to public disorder. Many of the homeless, they note, are not merely down on their luck but suffer serious behavioral problems. They explain how civic reforms during the 1950s that professionalized police services shifted police work from crime prevention to crime response, thus creating some of the unintended consequences that more recent reforms have had to address. Beginning most notably with the New York City Transit Police, for whom Kelling consulted, police departments have recently focused on minor offenses, capturing a large number of serious criminals in the process. Other police departments, with the assistance of civic groups, have begun similar work. The authors provide cogent advice, backed by copious endnotes, on how to implement similar strategies. They say too little about the challenges in recruiting and training police for community strategies, however, although they do acknowledge that some New York outreach workers have been accused of abusing street people. Coles is a lawyer and anthropologist.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Free Press (January 20, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684837382
• ISBN-13: 978-0684837383
• Product Dimensions: 4.4 x 0.8 x 7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #355,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Individual Rights and the Power in Communities March 17, 2003

By Kenneth Young

Format:Paperback

Disorderly behavior damages communities, so goes the central theme of Kelling & Coles's <em>Fixing Broken Windows</em>, a book about "restoring order and reducing crime". Kelling & Coles proceed to back this assertion up with both logical argument and evidence from a small but impressive set of studies of community policing. Their arguments tend to be rather persuasive, and will likely resonate with anyone who's fond of Etzioni's Communitarianism.

Disorder, Kelling & Coles argue, breeds many things in a community: fear on the part of residents; further disorder; and eventually "serious" crime. Disorder promotes decay as streets cease to be areas where community standards are enforced, or where those standards are to the detriment of the majority of the members of the community.

From Kelling & Coles perspective, before the 60's, police were far more integrated with the communities they served, in part by virtue of regular contact with residents as they walked beats. This enabled them to have a much better understanding of the particular needs and standards of the communities they work in. Even more importantly, it allowed them to prevent crime, rather than simply respond to it.

The police of today, Kelling and Coles argue, are not only not efective at reducing disorder, they are ineffective at preventing crime, and not terribly good at responding to crime. The 911 model limits police contact with the general citizenry, and prevents them from developing the kinds of relationship that allow them to intervene effectively without resorting to overtly coercive or threatening behaviors.

One particular study cited by Kelling and Coles stands out to me, in which they looked at fear, one of the crucial factors in their model. Robert Trojanowicz(1982), they report, found that officers alone on foot patrol were less fearful that officers patrolling two to a car in the same areas.

Kelling & Coles supply not only examples of what they consider successful and unsuccessful attempts at order maintenance proograms, they also review the legal foundation for such activities, as well as the legal challenges to such efforts as "aggressive panhandling" ordinances. Their analysis helps a lay reader understand different burdens that a law might come under in order to show that it is attempting to meet a compelling government interest, as well as how limitations on personal behavior may be legally justified in the interest of preserving safe & orderly public fora.

The main weakness of the book, and the argument, in my opinion, is the lack of adequate examination of how community power struggles and class issues will likely play out in the development of community standards of behavior for an area. It is a very significant concern that the order police may have helped in the past, while they were more integrated into their communities, was a much more segregated one, where being the wrong color in the wrong neighborhood was disorderly enough to merit attention. This is not a fatal flaw in the book, nor in the idea of community policing, but establishing adequate internal controls and external oversight deserves much more attention.

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Kelling & Coles Fix America's Cities August 5, 2000

By Jim Jordan

Format:Paperback

In 1982, Wilson and Kelling proposed a link between disorder and crime that they expressed through the metaphor of the "broken window." Leave the broken window unrepaired and soon the rest of the windows will be broken as well. Leave all the windows broken and the building becomes a signal to offenders that this place -- this street, neighborhood, city -- is a place in which disorder is accepted, or at least tolerated. Victimization and crime take root in such places. Malcolm Gladwell has more recently expressed this as the power of "context." (Tipping Point)

"Broken windows" over the intervening 18 years has become a commonplace of public policy. Most writers neglect even to cite Wilson and Kelling as its creator. However, as is the case when an attractive idea migrates from the terrain of scholars to the public marketplace, the notion has come to mean many different things for many different commentators.

IN FWB, Kelling & Coles set the definition stratight, in lucid, concrete policy analysis and writing. Most importantly, the book serves as a highly-readable manual for practitioners. The power of the idea is expressed through the success stories it has spwawned, from the NYC subways to the streets of Seattle. All serious students of public safety policy and the policing process must read it.

11 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Follow up to the classic article he co-authored October 29, 1996

By A Customer

Format:Hardcover

In this book the authors provide a great historical
overview of why social disorders are a precursor to more
serious crime and need to be addressed by the "community"
before more serious crime occurs.
Given the wholesale movement to Community Based Policing
this book is a great primer to those not yet exposed to the
principles and uses some real life examples from the hard
core.

I'm a bit disappointed that the authors didn't explore
more of the 'new' movement of Community Based Policing
and how disorder plays a vital role in this philosophy.
Also for any student of the movement some of the info
is old hat and not as current as I would have liked to
seen.

The authors make a great case for how individual liberties
may have to be curtailed for the good of the community
and explores this dilemna quite fully.

Great reading for a practioner