Broken Windows Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Broken Windows - Essay ExampleThe theory postulates that when overt behavior in a neighborhood is unregulated, it leads to the gradual breakdown of community controls (Kelling and Wilson, 2, 1982). The broken window here is symbolic of the breakdown of the informal controls through which people regulate public behavior in a neighborhood. The shared civic obligations and mutual considerations of community living act as barriers to crime and disorder. Once these barriers are overcome by the perception that no one cares, vandalism occurs. Social controls are weakened and citizens feel that the environment in uncontrolled. This generates fear. Such an area, with its broken windows, is particularly vulnerable to the public exposure of crime and disorder. When disorderly behavior remains unchecked, it goes on to become criminal.When police apply the Broken Window theory to specific actions on the street, they aim to nobble --- the level of public order in the neighborhood (Kelling and W ilson, 1982). The role of the police is to maintain order. It is acknowledged that disorder and crime are interconnected in a community. The polices role is founded on this link between order-maintenance and crime-prevention. Their role is based on the premise that serious street crime flourishes in areas in which disorderly behavior goes unchecked (Kelling and Wilson, 2, 1982). It is a reflection of the polices role in earlier periods, when the main responsibility of the police was to maintain order. Actions much(prenominal) as keeping drinking away from the main intersections, questioning strange loiterers, preventing panhandlers and vagrants from bothering pedestrians and begging at bus-stops, keeping noisy teenagers in check, and settling disputes between customers and businessmen are geared towards the maintenance of public order. Arresting a single drunk or vagrant