Broken Windows Theory

The notion that serious crime is stemmed from minor disorders and fear of crime was a well-developed hypothesis in the 1980s by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling (Hinkle & Weisburd, 2006). Wilson and Kelling (1982) had coined this theory as “broken windows”. Broken windows theory states that disorder in a society causes the residents of the society to develop fear (Hinkle & Weisburd, 2008). The authors go on to state that fear is the fueling source behind delinquent behavior, which resulted in higher rates of serious crimes (2008). The main concept of this theory illustrated that if police were to target and eliminate minor disorders through community policing, it would have an overall impact on the reduction of crime rates (Gau & Pratt, 2008). Broken windows theory was not accepted by all, in fact it sparked a great deal of controversy (Wilson & Kelling, 1982). The opposing views of broken windows theory argued that it was too weak because of the lack thereof empirical evidence proving the correlation between implementation of broken windows policing methods and decrease in crime (Harcourt, 1998). The purpose of this essay was to compare and contrast the two different perspectives on the broken windows theory. This paper shall also conclude whether the broken windows theory can be successfully used within a community policing model. In my opinion the broken windows theory had enough substantial groundwork presented that it was successfully used within community policing.
To begin, according to Clyde Cronkhite (2004) the theory was true. Cronkhite connects “disorder and crime as part of a developmental sequence” (2008, p. 246). The main concept that Kelling and Wilson stated, was that if small minor disorders such as littering, public drinking, graffiti etc. were tolerated in a society than it would spiral out creating more serious crimes (Cronkhite, 2004). Cronkhite (2004) gave reasoning behind their theory stating that serious crimes stem from criminals

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