Two Architects of Broken Windows Policing Go On the Defensive

Few city-related topics have generated as much debate in 2014 as broken windows policing. New York has played host to this discussion, especially in the aftermath of the over-aggressive arrest that led to Eric Garner's terrible death, but the whole country has taken part. Critics suggest the broken windows approach—which holds that stopping petty crimes ultimately deters big ones—is broken itself: unfairly targeting minorities, destroying community trust in police, and arguably doing more harm to the city than good.

Two architects of broken windows policy come to its defense in the Winter 2015 issue of City Journal, a quarterly from the Manhattan Institute. NYPD Commissioner William Bratton, who's been using a broken windows strategy in major U.S. cities for decades, and criminal justice scholar George Kelling, who (along with James Q. Wilson) popularized the concept in a 1982 issue of The Atlantic, counter their critics point by point. In hopes of a sharper public discourse, we summarize some of their key arguments below, then raise additional challenges.