Broken Windows Theory Critique

Broken Windows Theory Critique
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Violence constitutes a crucial public health issue in the United States (U.S.). A significant share of the burden of injuries, disability, and death is attributed to nonfatal assaults and homicide. These two factors primarily contribute to the rising racial disparities in life expectancy. Violence is attributed to the increased cost of welfare and health care services, undermines the country's economic development, reduces real estate values, and disrupts the delivery of essential services. It is important to understand the factors responsible for the decline or escalation of violent crime in the U.S. in order to contribute to policy efforts tailored to crime reduction. In order to effectively recognize and address crime issues in the community, policymakers and researchers are focusing on different legal concepts, including broken windows theory (BWT). The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the BWT and how it can be employed to understand and control criminality in society, including its strengths and weaknesses, based on credible scholarly evidence.
Overview of BWT
BTW remains one of the most prominent behavioral and social sciences concepts over the previous three decades and one of the most controversial. Kelling and Wilson developed the BTW stating that the social and physical disorder presence (for example, dilapidation, panhandling, drunkenness, and graffiti) contributed to more severe crime proliferation. This assertion has inspired a law enforcement approach termed broken windows policing, which encourages low-level misdemeanor enforcement as a practical approach to reduce criminality and various theoretical offshoots within fields beyond criminology, including child development and public health. Despite its prominence, the theory is surrounded by controversy (O'Brien et al., 2019). There are inconsistent evaluations with respect to the impact of the broken windows strategy on the incidence of crimes in the community.
In addition, the BWT indicates that once community disorder attains a critical threshold, it produces an increasingly serious problem of urban decay and crime. Using the BWT analogy, it is plausible to assert that unchecked criminality within the community shows aspects of moral decay, insecurity, lack of order, the potential for increased crime rate, as well as deteriorated social control thresholds. The consequence of such a status quo is that the neighborhood would attract criminal and unlawful players from adjacent communities, creating a lawlessness culture. This policing strategy is anchored on the perspective that minor offenders may create an avenue for the emergence of increasingly serious crimes, especially when they are allowed to fester (Kamalu & Onyeozili, 2018). The inability to mitigate minor offenses, including unruly behavior and prostitution, destabilizes societies by offering a fertile environment for unruly behavior and disorder. Individuals will be increasingly inclined to engage in criminal behavior due to tolerance of petty crimes, thus implying a lack of practical social control measures (Cerdá et al., 2009). The broken windows policing strategy offers c...