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This research paper presents an empirical exploration of the merits and feasibility of the Broken Window Theory in a community with a particulate social background. The paper will present experimentations outcomes on the hypothesis that curtailing the proliferation of smaller crimes as held in the core of the focus theoretical and conceptual framework will indeed yield positive results inform reducing crime and inculcating a pro-peace societal culture in communities.

Abstract

The research exercise presented in this perhaps has been conducted to test the conceptual tenets of the broken Window Theory propounded by. The core hypothetical position of the research endeavor is based on the supposition that curbing and curtailing the spread of small crimes is vital for the entire crime-fighting stratagem. Sub hypotheses entail the implementation of small crime-fighting measures as outlined in the core research core theoretical framework will culminate in eh creation of a pro-peace social and societal culture. Experimentations were conducted to establish how subjects behave in a littered bus shelter. The manipulated variable was the condition of the shelter which was subject to subjects as either lean or littered to establish if the condition of the shelter had any direct and established impact on the conduct of the subjects. Results indicated that the frequency of littering is remarkably high in cases where subjects found the shelter littered while also showing the frequency of littering is significantly low when subjects find the shelter clear. The rationale of the testing design was to attest to the notion that minute negative forms of conduct have a ramifying impact. This has substantiated the core tenet of the broken window theory which holds that if uncontrolled; small crimes are likely to lead to more serious forms of crime.

Introduction

Theoretical background

The Theory of The broken window has been developed from the insights and suppositions by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 who asserted that efforts targeted at controlling minor disorders could help reduce more serious crime. White James Emery (2001) notes that over the past decades three key areas in the US which are Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles have embraced at least some tenet of the suppositions and theoretical positions of Kelling. This has been through the formulation and implementation of the minor misdemeanors laws.

The broken windows theory addresses the first puzzle of the neighborhood-effects literature in a straightforward and provocative way: it is the variation in disorder in neighborhoods that explains the variation in crime, holding structural disadvantage constant. The real trigger is disorderliness itself. The theory was familiar to sociologists because of its proximity to theories of urban decay and social contagion. Urban sociologists interpreted the broken windows hypothesis through the lens of urban decline: disorderliness, dilapidation, abandonment, and social disorder, such as prostitution, public intoxication, and drug use, reflected and reinforced, in a cyclical manner, declining property values, residential instability, and the gradual decay of the urban neighborhood. A closely related interpretation is suggested by Philip Cook and Kristin Goss’s review of the standard models of ‘social contagion’.

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From this contagion perspective, the broken windows phenomenon reflects an information cascade: people with imperfect information about the risks and rewards of criminal activity may infer the net returns to crime from the social environment. Information limitations are at the heart of the information cascade model. Here, the potential criminals do not know the probability of being detected in a neighborhood, but the lack of enforcement of minor crime and disorder fills this void and signals low enforcement. The characteristics of the local physical environment, which are themselves the product of the accumulated series of behaviors of local residents, thus communicate the statistical likelihood of being apprehended. They are a signaling mechanism that feeds into the calculus of whether to commit a crime. “This “contagion” interpretation offers a straightforward explanation of broken windows familiar to most sociologists and economists” (Hier, 2007).