By: Thomas Donnovan

Broken Window Theory first came about in 1982 when sociologists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling first published a paper called “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety.” In summation, Wilson and Kelling conclude that if the physical makeup of a neighborhood goes into disrepair by aesthetic markers, e.g. broken windows, graffiti, run-down cars, and other architecturally defunct features, then the neighborhood would also be riddled with crime. Instinctually, Broken Window Theory makes sense. Most neighborhoods with high crime statistics also have a high probability of incurring aesthetic markers of disorder that affect communal morale, such as vandalism. In essence, perceived disorder created actual disorder and crime.

But problems and criticisms with this theory started pretty soon after its inception, especially with consideration to graffiti. For one, graffiti began to become legalized in the mid-1980s due to recognition from the art community of its potential marketability. Broken Window Theory stated that vandalism such as graffiti would cause crime, and yet, other than graffiti being a crime in and of itself, there wasn’t a statistical increase in crime as Broken Window Theory predicted.

In fact, if you look at the statistics and the neighborhoods themselves, crime seems to occur more so in environments with legal advertisements, like billboards. The reasons for this are probably more varied than sociologists indicate, but an overwhelming theory is that people who grow up in environments where it is communally acceptable to believe that you will only be a productive member of society if you have this item or that item, then, studies have found, an individual is more willing to commit a crime, such as theft, to acquire such an item when they cannot afford it through more traditional means, i.e. actually buying it.

So it isn’t in fact graffiti that aesthetically prompts a community to have higher levels of crime, but more so the perception of needing a specific image promoted by advertisement agencies without the actual means to buy them that creates the tendencies for crime to occur.

Again, it can’t be predicted with any certainty that an individual will commit a crime if he sees a billboard rather than graffiti, but data tends to suggest a mindset that gets ingrained with not only the individual but the community at large which informs the statistics. The mindset of most crime, such as theft and violent crimes, occur not because the individual criminal is thinking of what he/she is doing and how their community is in such disrepair, but rather of what they are achieving by committing their crime. Invariably, what they achieve is material, though down the line it turns into institutional, i.e. jails and penitentiaries.

Once individual motives get examined behind criminal statistics along with community markers, then a full picture will begin to take a more defined shape as to accurately predicting what environments are more prone to having higher criminal statistics than others.

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