There are several theories that attempt to explain the distribution of neighborhood crime. Research has been carried out over the years to ascertain what leads to a pattern of crimes in neighborhoods. Routine Activity Theory, Broken Window Theory and Social Disorganization Theory tend to explain the causes of such crime patterns. Of course, other theories attempt to shed light on this matter, but these three have been found more insightful in addressing the issue. This paper specifically explores how the Broken Window Theory relates to neighborhood crime.
The ecological approach towards the examination of the distribution of crime began as early as the 1800s. The approach sought to establish whether the prevalence of crime and deviance was based on certain geographical locations or was simply a function of the immediate environment (Janssen et al., 2019) . The three theories were majorly considered since they operate in ecological tradition. Each of them employs a scientific approach in attempting to understand the spatial distribution of crime. These theories either use a structured qualitative approach or quantitative methods in their analysis of the phenomenon. The many years of research have led to a clear understanding of the spatial distribution of crime.
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Wilson and Kelling founded the Broken Window Theory in 1982. Their main argument was that an unrepaired window in a building would lead to other windows being broken. As such, communities with neighborhood problems that are not quickly and appropriately addressed will experience even more such problems in the near future. These neighborhood problems alluded to mainly result from social disorder and physical disorder. The social disorder occurs when people's behavior is uncontrolled such that they go against the very confines of 'acceptable behavior' in the community. When such undesirable behavior is not corrected or checked, it will eventually result in a breakdown of community controls. As such, it will no longer be viable to tame such behavior, which will create feelings of insecurity and unrest amongst members of the community. Those responsible for these feelings include rowdy teenagers, drunks, addicts, loiterers, the jobless and the mentally disturbed. Evidently, the social disorder manifests in this manner: a select group of people behave in a way that makes other residents feel uncomfortable and unsafe in their own homes.
The physical disorder manifests differently from social disorder. It manifests as physical alterations to the urban landscape mainly due to individual actions or neglect of property (Jiang et al., 2018) . Evidence of physical disorder includes overgrown grass, graffiti, unrepaired damage to property such as broken fences and litter. The Broken Window Theory argues that these kinds of social and physical disorders in a community send a clear message to potential offenders. It signals to them that they can commit crimes in the region without the worry of being caught. In essence, the disorder does act as a visual cue to potential offenders. It clearly shows them the parts of the community that are possible targets and those that are not. According to the theory, there is also an increase in fear in relation to crime amongst residents of the community. This goes on to create a negative feedback loop which will eventually result in more disorder.
The Broken Window Theory employs a powerful mechanism to understand the correlation between crimes at specific locations and how those specific locations contribute to the crime rate. The theory suggests that areas with high levels of social and physical disorders tend to have higher crime rates compared to the ones that have lower ones. Moreover, it is possible that such areas with high levels of the disorder may influence neighborhood conditions which might lead to the spread of crimes to other areas that are nearby.
It is also important to ascertain the role of neighborhood and individual traits in how they respond to disorder cues. This helps understand what traits leads to more crime in certain neighborhoods. How well a neighborhood function and how advantaged it is can eventually influence the cue effects. Neighborhood cues can act as a trigger for certain behavior when people familiarize themselves with them (Kotabe et al., 2016) . People perceive neighborhood disorder and other social problems based on the composition of the area. In most cases, the perception of disorder is magnified in areas with many minority groups and higher rates of poverty.
A trait of disorder that is present in an area with a high prevalence of crime or one that is disorganized will not attract attention and trigger any such bad behavior. It may even go unnoticed and not cause any more criminal activity. However, in a well-organized neighborhood, such a cue may be easily recognized and will influence behavior. Disorder cues in such well-functioning societies may end up not having the expected effect as the one advanced by the broken window theory. According to the theory, disorder cues lead to norm-violating traits since they signal that no one cares, which means such behavior will not be sanctioned. In fact, in well-organized areas, such cues may trigger behavior that restores order. Well-functioning neighborhoods have more pronounced norms about social order compared to deteriorated areas.
A Case Study
The broken window theory was tested by George L. Kelling during his years as a patrol officer. The state of New Jersey came up with a program called ‘Safe and Clean Neighborhood Program', which was aimed at improving the quality of life in communities across twenty eight cities. It was designed to get police officers out of their patrol cars and make them do patrol walks around the neighborhoods. State officials envisioned that this form of the patrol would help curb crimes in the areas because of the proximity of the officers to the citizens. However, most police chiefs were skeptical about the whole program and discredited it. They argued that it significantly reduced the coverage of these police officers and their ease to respond to citizen calls for service. Unlike car patrols, the response time was increased, which proved to be inefficient in the eyes of police chiefs. However, with the backing of the governor and other state officials, the program was rolled out.
The police officers themselves did not also like the program because it seemed like hard work. They had to endure long walks during cold and rainy nights. Some departments used it as a form of punishment to their officers. Most people were skeptical about the kind of impact the program would have on the crime rates in neighborhoods (Ortigueira-Sánchez, 2016). However, the program still went on due to the funding it received from the state. The program was evaluated five years later to ascertain its achievements and failures. The analysis proved everyone right; there had been no notable reduction in crime rates since the enrolment of the foot patrol program. However, there was another interesting finding that was established. The people in the foot-patrolled neighborhoods admitted that they felt more secure compared to residents in other areas. They believed that crime in their area had gone down, and as such, they did not need to do so much to protect themselves like before. For instance, just staying at home and locking the door would guarantee safety. Citizens in the patrolled areas developed a different and favorable opinion about the police as opposed to those from other areas. They appreciated the work of the police officers, and this gave them greater job satisfaction. Even the police officers developed a positive attitude towards the residents in the neighborhoods they patrolled because they felt appreciated.
The analysis of the study showed that foot patrol had no impact on the crime rates. The only thing it did was fool the citizens into believing that the proximity to police officers made them safer. On the contrary, Kelling established that the program did not fool the citizens. They understood the role the police officers on foot patrol played. What they offered was significantly different from what vehicle patrol officers did. The citizens knew that having police officers patrol on foot in their neighborhood made the area safer than before.
Many skeptics sought to establish how neighborhoods could be deemed safer when the actual crime rate had not gone down (Piscitelli & Doherty, 2018) . It was more of a puzzle. However, safety is abstract and the way people perceive it differs. The best way to look at it is to establish what mostly frightens people in public areas. Crime is one such factor, according to many citizens, especially a sudden and violent attack by a stranger. Such acts are predominant, especially in most large cities with significant crime rates. Moreover, there is also the fear of being bothered by people who are disorderly, uncontrollable and rowdy. These cocoons of people do not necessarily entail criminals or violent people. It is mostly made up of disreputable or unpredictable people such as addicts, drunks, loiterers, panhandlers and rowdy teenagers. The foot patrol officers improved public order in the neighborhoods.
A Stanford psychologist, Philip Zimbardo, also carried out some experiments to test the broken window theory in 1969. He parked an automobile without license plates and with its hood up on the street in the Bronx and another automobile in Palo Alto, California. As expected, the car in the Bronx was vandalized within ten minutes of its abandonment. People passed by and removed useful components from the vehicle, including the radiator and the battery. Within a very short span, every valuable component in the car had been removed by different people. Then people randomly smashed the car windows one after the other and ripped the car apart. Soon, children started using the car as a playground. A notable observation was that most people who vandalized the car were well-dressed whites. The other car on the streets of Palo Alto remained untouched for about one week. Philip then partly smashed it with a sledgehammer. After a short while, people began vandalizing the car and taking useful components to sell or even keep for themselves. Within a very few hours, there was nothing salvageable from the car. It had been totally destroyed.
This implied that people usually found it fun and easy to vandalize untended property. It is so easy for anyone to take part in such an activity because there are no barriers preventing them or limiting their involvement in the disorderly activity. Even law-abiding citizens who probably wouldn't consider themselves doing such things are drawn to them when they happen. The rate at which vandalism begins in the Bronx is faster than that of Palo Alto. This is because some underlying factors or locational traits compel the activity. In the Bronx, cars are regularly abandoned on the streets, things stolen, and others broken. People there had a preconceived notion of 'not caring' and would go about their business, taking little to no notice of the occurrences in their neighborhood. That is why the vandalism started within a very short time. However, in Palo Alto, where there is a popular belief in caring for private possessions, vandalism takes a longer time to begin. Still, what this showed was that mischievous behavior can still occur anywhere so long as communal barriers are lowered by actions that suggest ‘no one cares’ (Ren et al., 2017) .
There are also effects of housing disorder on neighborhood crime rates. The research was conducted by Rebecca, Dominick and Tapp to establish the effect of physical and housing disorder on the crime rates. The findings indicated that traditional measures of physical disorders could not allow the effect of disorder on crime to be observed fully. From their analyses, they established that public space disorder was responsible for predictions of neighborhood crime rates. Public and physical disorders were more overt and capable of sending stronger signals of disinvestment to potential criminals and offenders. Physical cues of disorder do offer a clear sign of neighborhood decline.
The other neighborhood characteristics, like level of disadvantage, operate more covertly (Seo & Jeon, 2021) . The study alluded to the fact that the way members of a community perceive signals of disorder is more important compared to the indices themselves. Specifically, whereas some behaviors may be considered disorderly by some individuals, the same behaviors may actually be perceived as normative or non-threatening by others. Arguably, signals should increase fear in order for the broken window process to take place. Without an increase in fear, there is a likelihood that community members will recoil or isolate themselves from the larger community.
The Pros and Cons of Using the Broken Window Theory
The police use the broken window theory strategy to fight crime to keep neighbourhoods safer. In their first article, Kelling and Wilson described the role of current disorder in dealing with a more serious crime in the future. According to the theory, social disorder instils fear in the citizens, and this compels them to resign to fear and thereby permitting more crimes to occur. The police employ different strategies, including focusing on small acts of criminals to compel the residents to form informal social controls (Volker, 2017) . This enables them to take command of their neighbourhood and ensure no more such crimes occur. The strategy has both advantages and disadvantages to the citizens in the specific neighbourhoods.
The first advantage is that it encourages people with wayward behaviour to clean up their act. Criminals, looters, rowdy teenagers and troublesome juveniles can learn from the police on the implications of such vile behaviour. This kind of approach enables the juveniles to change early on and prevents them from making worse decisions in the future. It helps keep the streets safer and the population in check. Moreover, the members of the community can come up with programs and activities that are aimed at keeping the teenagers involved so as to prevent idling and possible exposure to criminal activities. These programs have been efficient at helping the children use their time constructively to learn or develop their talents. This is what reduces the number of idlers and rowdy teenagers in the streets undertaking illegal behaviour.
There is also a drop in the crime rates in neighbourhoods that use this strategy to combat illegal behaviour. Most people are sceptical about the impact of this approach in reducing crime levels in regions. Even the research conducted by Kelling did not show significant levels in crime reduction. However, practically, if people in a certain neighbourhood start feeling safer after the adoption of this strategy, then it means they are encountering fewer criminal activities, unlike before. In the long run, the crime rates will reduce significantly. For instance, in New York City, both petty and serious crime rates went down after adopting the broken window policing system in the 90s. During the first year, car thefts went down by approximately 15% and murders by 19% (Yates et al., 2021) . Therefore the strategy leads to a reduction in the rate of criminal activities in a given neighbourhood.
Broken window policing leads to more motivated leadership in communities. Implementing this policing strategy allows leaders and law enforcement to emphasize ensuring that their communities become safer. They work to rid their communities of all kinds of crimes, from the small, petty ones to the larger misconducts.
There are also disadvantages associated with broken window policing. For instance, juveniles who engage in crimes or minor mistakes and get caught usually have a harder time later. The bad records attached to their profiles may slim their chances of getting into the colleges they desire later on or even finding jobs. In most cases, the punishment may be due to a minor mistake made by the juvenile, maybe due to a lack of proper guidance while growing up. However, such records may go on to haunt them. Once they miss the chance to get into college, they may resolve to get into even worse activities.
Social and physical disorder is also much more of a social construct than a concrete phenomenon. As such, their perception does differ from person to person depending on the demographic background and one's life experiences. Some people use this argument to discredit the broken window theory because they question what is deemed acceptable behaviour and who sets this kind of construct. Essentially, what one deems an acceptable amount of litter may not be acceptable by another party. Social disorder then becomes merely a social construct that is largely relative.
The other disadvantage is that there may be instances where the rights of individuals are abused. The authority given to the police through the broken window policing to enforce the smallest rules may be over-exercised. They may be tempted to go overboard and harass individuals, especially those from minority groups and the poor. Police brutality has been an area of concern for some time in the country. At times they use excessive force, which is uncalled for in that particular context, and if it is not checked, it could lead to more people being abused.
Conclusion
Even though the broken window theory has been logically consistent, there have been a number of individuals who have outrightly questioned the approach. Researchers have undertaken experiments to ascertain the connection between social disorder and the crimes suggested by the broken window theory. For instance, Raudenbush and Sampson sought to establish such a connection. They leveraged systematic social observations to establish the level of disorder in the neighbourhood blocks of Chicago. They captured video recordings of some incidents of social disorder and physical disorder. They then counted those incidences of disorder and compared them to the crime rates in the region. Unlike the strong correlation between the two factors that the black window theory predicts, the analysis only established a modest correlation. There have also been issues regarding people’s ability to differentiate properly between disorder and fear of crime when questioned about them. These are among the criticisms of the broken window theory that have been brought to light so far.
References
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