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- Kelling and Wilson thought that if police departments addressed “broken windows” and other signs of the disorder, then more significant crimes would not happen. Explain why they thought this would work?
Kelling and Wilson believed that broken windows and other signs of decay could send signals that the neighborhood is not cared for. This was a fascination with what had happened in Zimbardo, where the cars were abandoned. They, however, held a belief that police intervention will help in addressing such problems (Vendantam et al., 2016). They further hold that the claiming of people in public spaces was an ideal way of stopping crime. They, therefore, believed that the police would clean up the streets instead of solving crimes will avoid more significant crimes happening. Kelling and Wilson thus had thought that the police would stop more significant crimes from happening by cleaning up the streets and maintaining law and order than channeling resources to solve major crimes.
- What was happening to the crime rate BEFORE Giuliani was elected mayor and implemented broken windows policing in New York City? What has happening to the crime rates in other cities in the US?
The misdemeanor crimes were the standard set of criminal activities in New York before the age of Giulian. Vandalizing and breaking into cars is evident in this society. In this community, he was elected as the mayor for the reason of creating reformation and eliminating such crimes. Vandalizing of windows of cars was also evident in society as a misdemeanor. Kelling and Wilson urge that the tolerating of minor offenses such as drug use, graffiti, and prostitution would escalate to more dangerous crimes regardless of the neighborhood (Vendantam et al., 2016). The community of Palo Alto practiced a relative period of lacking such practices and vandalizing of cars. This reveals that the crime rates in other states were lower as compared to the territory of Giuliani. Generally, the central crime in New York before the era of Giuliani was broken windows.
- How did broken windows policing become stop and frisk policing?
Before 1993, the Harcourt believed that there was a big problem with broken windows. There was an emergence of a sharp increase in complaints regarding misconduct. The people thought that they were going to see a tremendous degree of disorder that may result from the broken windows policy (Vendantam et al., 2016). The projection results from the skyrocketing of the police brutality, brutal accidents, and the sudden happening of clips. This problem grew to become intense as the as a result of the broken windows that people were creating the need for “stop and frisk.” The idea of stopping and frisking was vital in working to prevent minor crimes from escalating into major criminal activities. In this case, they were to set a platform for searching anybody that seemed suspicious. Therefore, the steady increase in broken windows created a needs to stop and frisk to prevent crimes from growing into major crimes.
- What did your lesson(s) did you learn about implementing a theory as a “solution” to a crime problem?
The implementation process is stepwise, and it is crucial, and the drivers of the solution should not celebrate early success. This lesson comes from Kelling’s assertion that “that is not the end intended for.” It is, therefore, essential to acknowledge early success, but we should never celebrate them too much to hamper our targets.
Various deters may also arise as a hinder toward the achievement of the target goals. In the article, Kelling asserts that he would read newspapers in the 1990s where chiefs were willing to implement the new broken windows (Vendantam et al., 2016). These arguments serve as deters to implementations and achievement of the goals of a given community. However, the governor of this period never took a keen interest in what the chiefs were asserting that led to his success. This lesson thus enlightens us that in the journey of struggling to succeed, people should not take into consideration what other people believe.
References
Vedantam, S., Benderev, C., Boyle, T., Klahr, R., Penman, M., & Schmidt, J. (2016). How a
Theory of Crime and Policing Was Born And Went Wrong.