The "Broken Windows" Theory

Abstract

In the early 1990s, Rudy Giuliani, then the newly elected Mayor of New York City, set out to prove that New York City was in fact, manageable. Duly impressed with the concepts elucidated in an article, "Broken Windows'' by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, Giuliani was the first big city mayor to put the theory into action. The "Broken Windows" thesis posits that something as simple as a building with a broken window signals abandonment, a lax attitude toward property, and therefore an absence of respect for the law. "Broken Windows" suggests that stopping the little things will prevent the escalation, the acceptance of bigger and bigger infractions.