Broken Windows Policing, Homelessness, and the Parkway

Even though our economy is going through a very rough period right now, and at first glance it may appear that our economic troubles justify allowing the legal creation of a tent city encampment that will congregate crimogenic populations, at the same time we are reducing public safety expenditures; we should resist that urge, and do what we can to strengthen public safety on and near the Parkway rather than reducing it.

Our community is currently involved in a very serious policy debate about whether to legalize a homeless encampment, and the issue is one of major concern to our The American River Parkway Preservation Society, as it is quite possible, that if this policy is approved, the encampment will be close to the American River Parkway, continuing the Parkway camping by the homeless that has had a degrading impact on adjacent communities to use their part of the Parkway safely for several years.

It will also render moot—in Sacramento—the concept underlying the hugely successful policy of broken windows policing by legalizing the very conditions broken windows references in its policing focus.

We have referred to the broken windows form of policing where even minor infractions like panhandling, illegal camping, (or broken windows) are vigorously policed because a disorderly environment creates more disorder; in respect to the long-term policy in our area of essentially allowing illegal camping by the homeless in the Parkway, increasing crime and reducing public safety in the Parkway and surrounding neighborhoods.

The movement to create a permanent tent city near the Parkway was blogged on in January of this year, here and here.  

One article about homeless camping, from November 2008, offered 25 tips for surviving out there, with #14 concerning the Parkway, noting: “It’s a half-mile from Tent Town to the American River, where the hard-core, chronically homeless hole up in the dense foliage leading up to its banks. The level of depravity increases the nearer you get to the water…” .

For its successful efforts—with its Safer Cities Initiative—to reduce the crimogenic degradation unrestricted homelessness creates, Los Angeles was recently ranked as the meanest city in the nation, as reported by the LA Daily News.

This story from City Journal reveals a horrifying look at what had been happening in Los Angeles’s Skid Row before the Safer City Initiatives were implemented.

The mean city ranking came from this report which also mentions Sacramento on page 77—and the folks who created it are working to decriminalize aspects of controlling homelessness that most communities demand as public safety measures, and as Sacramento struggles to come to terms with its homeless population, the resources included are valuable for the insight they provide into the various strategies being played out across the country around the issue that has such strong local resonance.
This article reports on recent research proving broken windows policing works.

Here is an excerpt.
“LOWELL – The year was 2005 and Lowell was being turned into a real life crime-fighting laboratory.

“Researchers, working with police, identified 34 crime hot spots. In half of them, authorities set to work – clearing trash from the sidewalks, fixing street lights, and sending loiterers scurrying. Abandoned buildings were secured, businesses forced to meet code, and more arrests made for misdemeanors. Mental health services and homeless aid referrals expanded.

“In the remaining hot spots, normal policing and services continued.

“Then researchers from Harvard and Suffolk University sat back and watched, meticulously recording criminal incidents in each of the hot spots.

“The results, just now circulating in law enforcement circles, are striking: A 20 percent plunge in calls to police from the parts of town that received extra attention. It is seen as strong scientific evidence that the long-debated “broken windows” theory really works – that disorderly conditions breed bad behavior, and that fixing them can help prevent crime.

“In traditional policing, you went from call to call, and that was it – you’re chasing your tail,” said Lowell patrol officer Karen Witts on a recent drive past a boarded up house that was once a bullet-pocked trouble spot. Now, she says, there appears to be a solid basis for a policing strategy that preemptively addresses the conditions that promote crime.

“Many police departments across the country already use elements of the broken windows theory, or focus on crime hot spots. The Lowell experiment offers guidance on what seems to work best. Cleaning up the physical environment was very effective; misdemeanor arrests less so, and boosting social services had no apparent impact.

“Such evidence-based policing is essential, argues David Weisburd, a professor of administration of justice at George Mason University. “We demand it in fields like medicine,” Weisburd said. “It seems to me with all the money we spend on policing, we better be able to see whether the programs have the effects we intend them to have.”

“And this particular study, he said, is “elegant” in how clearly it demonstrated crime prevention benefits.

“The broken windows theory was first put forth in a 1982 Atlantic article by James Q. Wilson, a political scientist then at Harvard, and George L. Kelling, a criminologist.  The theory suggests that a disorderly environment sends a message that no one is in charge, thus increasing fear, weakening community controls, and inviting criminal behavior. It further maintains that stopping minor offenses and restoring greater order can prevent serious crime.”

George Kelling, in a recent story in City Journal writes about the larger changes that accompanied the stimulus of broken windows in reducing crime in New York City.

Even though our economy is going through a very rough period right now, and at first glance it may appear that our economic troubles justify allowing the legal creation of a tent city encampment that will congregate crimogenic populations, at the same time we are reducing public safety expenditures; we should resist that urge, and do what we can to strengthen public safety on and near the Parkway rather than reducing it.

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Posted by David Lukenbill on Sep 9 2009. Filed under Viewpoints. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.