NCJ Number
193011
Journal
Theoretical Criminology Volume: 5 Issue: 4 Dated: November 2001 Pages: 445-466
Date Published
November 2001
Length
22 pages
Annotation
This article discusses the reasons why broken windows (order maintenance) policing and not community policing emerged as the dominant approach to urban policing in recent decades.
Abstract
Broken windows and community policing are the two main models for reforming contemporary police agencies. These police reforms have some common features. However, they differ significantly in the level of citizen oversight they envision. Broken windows meshes more comfortably than does community policing with the established patterns of thought in three realms: (1) police culture and organization, (2) wider cultural understandings of crime and deviance, and (3) political dynamics. Thus, the broken windows approach was able to supplant community policing as the main reform movement. One reason for the lack of genuine police reform is the unfortunate popular conflation of community policing-windows policing. The conflation of broken windows policing and community policing means that little significant change will occur in police agencies despite the lack of evidence indicating that broken windows policing reduces crime. As a result, policing will emphasize the separation of respectable citizens from the disorderly, define disadvantaged communities as sites of trouble rather than sites of tribulation, prefer punishment over public assistance, and reinforce the status quo. The analysis concludes that the dominance of order maintenance in policing has major consequences for the operations and oversight of police agencies. Notes and 68 references