Broken windows by James Q Wilson and George L Kelling.

Assignment 1

Reading 7- Broken windows by James Q Wilson and George L Kelling.

A) Wilson and Kelling discuss in the article the role of police in relation to crime. In order to improve the community’s quality of life, “safe and clean neighborhood program’s” were introduced. Money was provided to help cities assign police officers to walking beats, with the assumption that it would have an impact on crime rates. What foot patrollers did was to raise, the level of public order in these neighborhoods. Some police administrators argued that an officer in a squad car could observe as much as an officer on foot. Our experience is that you approach a person on foot more easily and talk to him more readily, then you do a person in a car. But the reality of police citizen encounters is powerfully altered by the automobile. An evaluation of the foot-patrol project was published five years later and concluded that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. However Wilson and Kelling suggested that the neighborhood might be safer even though crime rates increased. They explained this by stating that residents of the foot patrolled neighborhood felt more secure and took fewer steps to protect themselves from crime. Judging from there behavior and remarks to interviewers, decided it was the appropriate level for public order, and felt reassured when the police help them maintain that order.

Disorder and crime are usually linked. Philip Zimbardo tested this on experiments using the ‘broken window theory’. His findings suggested that unattended property and behavior leads to the breakdown of community control. A stable neighborhood can change in a few years into an area, which is vulnerable to criminal invasion. Among those unhappy residents who feel the need to move away, the elderly find it most difficult. Although Surveys suggest that the elderly are less likely to be the victims of crime then younger persons. Young men are more frequently attacked then older people, not because they are easier targets but they are on the streets more. Susan Estrich, of Harvard Law School, recently gathered a number of surveys on sources of public fear. Her findings agreed with Nathan Glazer comments on the increase of graffiti. Even though it may not be obscene, it leaves the assumption with the individual passing by, that the environment is uncontrolled and anyone can invade it to do whatever damage and mischief the mind suggests.

The police function was primarily seen as that of a night watchman. Solving crime was not seen a police responsibility. In the case of Robert Taylor Homes in Chicago, not long after it opened in 1962 relations between project residents and police deteriorated badly. The citizens felt that the police were insensitive or brutal; the police in turn complained of unprovoked attacks on them. Today the atmosphere has changed. Police-citizen relations have improved. In March 1969 Wilson wrote a brief account of how the police role had slowly changed from maintaining order to fighting crimes. The real meaning ...

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The criminal apprehension process was always understood to involve individual rights. Those who wished to “decriminalize”, disreputable behavior that “harmed no one ”, were thought to be making a mistake. A particular rule that seems to make sense in the individual case makes no sense when it is made a universal rule and applied to all cases. The concern about justice is more serious. We have to hope that by the selection, training, and supervision, of the police, that they do not become the agents of neighborhood prejudice. We assume in thinking that what is good for the individual will be good for the community. It may be there greater sensitivity to communal as opposed to individual needs that helps explain why the residents of small communities are more satisfied with there police than are the residents of similar neighborhoods. There are two traditions of communal involvement in maintaining order: one of that is “community watchmen”, were volunteer watchman patrolled there communities to keep order. The second tradition is “vigilante”. The members took the laws into there own hands. Citizens find their presence reassuring, and they contribute to maintaining a sense of order and civility. Though citizens can do a great deal, the police are plainly the key to order maintenance. The police forces are loosing members. The best the police can do with limited resources is respond with the enormous number of calls for services.

Officers are assigned on the basis of crime rate and calls for service. Arrangements such as hiring off duty police officers for patrol work are probably more successful than hiring private watchmen, and the Newark experiments helps us understand why. The police must protect communities as well as individuals. Crime statistics and victimization surveys measure individual looses but does not measure communal losses. The importance of communities maintaining in one piece without broken windows should be recognized.

B) The article considers in depth the role of the police in relation to crime. It raises issues about the limits of the criminal law and about the rights of citizens in relation to the state. The text is a ‘classic’ in terms of police studies and has much significance in the development of socio-legal studies and criminology.

The method used in this article show how the criminological procedure not only looks at how to punish the offender, but the reason why the individuals maybe offending. Not only does it consider the social issues such as the environment in which the offender is living in, but also looks at the psychological side, where the offender assumes that “no one cares” and so decides to offend.

Social scientists began to explore carefully the order maintenance function of the police, and to suggest ways of improving it. If these things could be done, citizens could be less fearful

C) Public Order

The Public Order Act 1986 abolished the common-law offences of riot, unlawful assembly, and affray, and created a new expanded range of statutory offences such as violent disorder, affray, threatening behaviour, and disorderly conduct. These are all arrestable offences that may be committed in both private and public places.

The primary role of public order is to provide tactical advice to police in situations where, there is serious public disorder or there is a serious risk to public safety. The secondary role is to provide training police officers with specialist public order tactics. Officers assigned to police support units are trained by the Public Order according to tactics and standards defined by national policy. This ensures that police has enough trained officers to meet its internal and external commitments. Public Order can also provide operational support to police officers. In order to undertake a specialist role within the police service, you must first have completed your probationary period of two years as a Police Constable and be confirmed in appointment. Officers who meet the relevant criteria may then apply for posts in specialist roles. If their application is successful, the officer will then be appointed.

Regarding the article, the experiment was carried out in Newark, which was a busy, but dilapidated area, with many abandoned buildings. The police, in this case ‘Kelly’, who was foot patrolling the area could be described as “enforcing the law”, as he often took informal or extralegal steps to help protect what the neighbourhood had decided was the appropriate level of public order.

Assignment 1