"Broken Windows"

When I lived at 459 North Fourth Street in San Jose, I sent my council member a copy of an article in The Atlantic called “Broken Windows” by James Q. Wilson.  Dr. Wilson’s thesis was that small “quality of life” issues like graffiti or panhandlers, left unchecked, would lead to major crime.  

Dr. Wilson thought that so-called “victimless crimes” like public drunkenness, would result in more serious crimes, since criminals, observing that this was a neighborhood of lawlessness, would move in.  One broken window, not fixed, was a message that this was a neighborhood where people no longer cared.

I took Dr. Wilson’s idea to heart.  I was a one-man anti-graffiti squad, removing graffiti from my neighborhood in San Jose, and later, in subsequent moves, in San Leandro, Danville, and Fairfax. 

Wilson’s theory’s on crime influenced many urban police forces, including the New York City police policies under Mayor Giuliani. To me Dr. Wilson’s ideas on “broken windows,” made perfect sense.  If you let the little crimes go unanswered, bigger crimes follow.  

Dr. Wilson died yesterday.  He was a social scientist who tried to solve problems by looking at real-world data.  He certainly influenced my thinking.