PROTOCOL: Broken Windows Policing to Reduce Crime: A Systematic Review

The School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University will be an intramural source of support for this project. Resources of the Gottfredson Criminal Justice Library will be used to conduct the search for eligible studies and information retrieval. We will seek support for the research from external sources such as private foundations and government grant-making agencies. Crime policy scholars, primarily James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling, and practitioners, such as Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton, have argued for years that when police pay attention to minor offenses—such as aggressive panhandling, prostitution, and graffiti—they can reduce fear, strengthen communities, and prevent serious crime (Bratton & Kelling, 2006; Wilson & Kelling, 1982). Spurred by claims of large declines in serious crime after the approach was adopted in New York City in the early 1990s, dealing with physical and social disorder, or “fixing broken windows,” has become a central element of crime prevention strategies adopted by many American police departments (Kelling & Coles, 1996; Sousa & Kelling, 2006). In their seminal “broken windows” article, Wilson and Kelling (1982) argue that social incivilities (e.g., loitering, public drinking, and prostitution) and physical incivilities (e.g., vacant lots, trash, and abandoned buildings) cause residents and workers in a neighborhood to be fearful. Fear causes many stable families to move out of the neighborhood and the remaining residents isolate themselves and avoid others. Anonymity increases and the level of informal social control decreases. The lack of control and escalating disorder attracts more potential offenders to the area and this increases serious criminal behavior. Wilson and Kelling (1982) argued that serious crime developed because the police and citizens did not work together to prevent urban decay and social disorder. The available research evidence on the connections between disorder and more serious crime is mixed. In the Netherlands, Keitzer et al. (2008) conducted six field experiments examining the links between disorder and more serious crime and concluded that dealing with disorderly conditions was an important intervention to halt the spread of further crime and disorder. Skogan's (1990) survey research found disorder to be significantly correlated with perceived crime problems in a neighborhood even after controlling for the population's poverty, stability, and racial composition. Further, Skogan's (1990) analysis of robbery victimization data from thirty neighborhoods found that economic and social factors' links to crime were indirect and mediated through disorder. In his reanalysis of the Skogan data, Harcourt (1998, 2001) removed several neighborhoods with very strong disorder-crime connections from Newark, New Jersey, and reported no significant relationship between disorder and more serious crime in the remaining neighborhoods. Eck and Maguire (2006) suggest that Harcourt's analyses do not disprove Skogan's results; rather his analyses simply document that the data are sensitive to outliers. Indeed, the removal of different neighborhoods from Harcourt's analysis may have strengthened the disorder-crime connection (Eck & Maguire, 2006). In his longitudinal analysis of Baltimore neighborhoods, Taylor (2001) finds some support that disorderly conditions lead to more serious crime. However, these results varied according to types of disorder and types of crime. Taylor (2001) suggests that other indicators, such as initial neighborhood status, are more consistent predictors of later serious crimes. Using systematic social observation data to capture social and physical incivilities on the streets of Chicago, Sampson and Raudenbush (1999) found that, with the exception of robbery, public disorder was not significantly related to most forms of serious crime when neighborhood characteristics such as poverty, stability, race, and collective efficacy were considered. Sampson and Raudenbush's findings have been criticized because their social observation data on disorder were collected during the day rather than at night (Sousa & Kelling, 2006) and based on their decision to test a model in which disorder mediates the effects of neighborhoods characteristics on crime rather than neighborhood characteristics mediating the effects of disorder on crime (Jang & Johnson, 2001). In another analysis, Xu et al. (2005) point out that Sampson and Raudenbush (1999)'s results actually are supportive of broken windows theory. The scientific research evidence on the crime control effectiveness of broad-based broken windows policing strategies, such as quality-of-life programs and order maintenance enforcement practices, is also mixed. However, there seems to be more research evidence supporting the crime prevention value of broken windows policing strategies than refuting it. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) provides the best known example of a macro policy of order maintenance, as it is well documented that officers were more aggressive in making arrests for minor offenses (Sousa & Kelling, 2006). Using misdemeanor arrests as a proxy for order maintenance activities, Kelling and Sousa (2001) found that the NYPD strategy was associated with a significant reduction in violent crime in the 1990s, after controlling for economic, demographic, and drug use variables. A similar analysis by Corman and Mocan (2002) found that increased misdemeanor arrests in New York City during the 1990s had a significant impact on robbery and motor vehicle theft controlling for economic and criminal justice factors. Two more recent studies of the impact of order-maintenance policing in New York City support the idea that policing disorder prevents more serious crime. Rosenfeld, Fornango, and Renfigo (2007) analyzed the effects of order-maintenance arrests on precinct-level robbery and homicide trends in New York City between 1988 and 2001, and concluded that the approach generated small but significant crime reduction gains. Using a different analytic approach, Messner and his colleagues (2007) analyzed homicide trends in 74 New York City police precincts between 1990 and 1999, and found that misdemeanor arrests generated significant reductions in total homicide rates with the largest impacts on gun homicide rates. This is consistent with Fagan, Zimring, and Kim's (1998) observation that the kinds of changes in policing associated with broken windows policing might be effective, in part, by taking more guns off the streets through increased police-citizen contacts. More recently, Zimring (2012) suggests that the police action in reducing crime in New York City during the 1990s was not the broken windows policing described by Kelling and Coles (1996) rather it more closely resembled a tight police focus on crime hot spots. There are also policy evaluations implemented in other jurisdictions that support the perspective that dealing with disorderly conditions generates crime control gains. Two separate randomized controlled trials of disorder policing strategies implemented within a problem-oriented policing framework found the strategy resulted in significant reductions in calls for service to the police in Jersey City, New Jersey (Braga et al., 1999) and Lowell, Massachusetts (Braga & Bond, 2008). The Safer City Initiative, an intervention launched by the Los Angeles Police Department to reduce homeless-related crimes by addressing disorderly conditions associated with homeless encampments, generated modest reductions in violent, property, and nuisance street crimes (Berk & MacDonald, 2010). Other macro-level analyses have generated results supportive of broad-based policing disorder strategies. In California, controlling for demographic, economic, and deterrence variables, a county-level analysis revealed that increases in misdemeanor arrests was associated with significant decreases in felony property offenses (Worrall, 2002). Finally, an analysis of robbery rates in 156 American cities revealed that aggressive policing of disorderly conduct and driving under the influence reduces robbery (Sampson & Cohen, 1988). Many observers, however, argue that it is very difficult to credit a generalized order maintenance strategy with the crime drop in New York in the 1990s. The NYPD implemented the broken windows strategy within a larger set of organizational changes framed by the Compstat management accountability structure for allocating police resources (Silverman, 1999). As such, it is difficult to establish the independent effects of broken windows policing relative to other strategies implemented as part of the Compstat process (Weisburd et al., 2003). Other scholars suggest that a number of rival causal factors, such as the decline in the city's crack epidemic, played a more important role in the crime drop (Blumstein, 1995; Bowling, 1999). Some academics have argued that the crime rate was already declining in New York before the implementation of any of the post-1993 police reforms, and that New York's decline in homicide rates were not significantly different from declines experienced in surrounding states and in other large cities that did not implement aggressive enforcement policies during that time period (Karmen, 2000; Eck & Maguire, 2006). Other evaluations have not found significant crime prevention gains associated with broad-based policing disorder strategies. A recent reanalysis of the Kelling and Sousa (2001) data did not find that a generalized broken windows strategy, as measured by increased misdemeanor arrests, yielded significant reductions in serious crimes in New York City between 1989 and 1998 (Harcourt & Ludwig, 2006). A quasi-experimental evaluation of a quality-of-life policing initiative focused on social and physical disorder in four target zones in Chandler, Arizona did not find any significant reductions in serious crime associated with the strategy (Katz et al., 2001). An evaluation of a one-month police enforcement effort to reduce alcohol and traffic-related offenses in a community in a Midwestern city did not find any significant reductions in robbery or burglary in the targeted area (Novak et al., 1999). Similarly, a randomized controlled experiment of broken windows policing in three towns in California (Redlands, Colton, and Ontario) found no significant effects on fear of crime, police legitimacy, collective efficacy, or perceptions of crime and social disorder (Weisburd et al., 2011). Given the mixed policy evaluation findings, a systematic review of the existing empirical evidence is warranted. This review will synthesize the existing published and non-published empirical evidence on the effects of broken windows policing interventions and will provide a systematic assessment of the crime reduction value of broken windows policing in neighborhoods. It is anticipated that this review will help inform policy makers and police department decision makers regarding the continued use of broken windows policing interventions to reduce crime in neighborhoods. Many police agencies in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and other nations currently use broken windows policing as a core crime control strategy and a critical examination of the existing evidence is warranted. The general idea of dealing with disorderly conditions to prevent crime is present in myriad police strategies, ranging from “order maintenance” and “zero-tolerance,” where the police attempt to impose order through strict enforcement, to “community” and “problem-oriented policing” strategies where police attempt to produce order and reduce crime through cooperation with community members and by addressing specific recurring problems (Cordner, 1998; Eck & Maguire, 2006; Skogan, 2006; Skogan et al., 1999). While its application can vary within and across police departments, broken windows policing to prevent crime is now a common crime control strategy. We will consider all policing programs that attempt to reduce crime through addressing physical disorder (vacant lots, abandoned buildings, graffiti, etc.) and social disorder (public drinking, prostitution, loitering, etc.) in neighborhood areas. These interventions will be compared to other police crime reduction efforts that do not attempt to reduce crime through reducing disorderly conditions such as traditional policing (i.e., regular levels of patrol, ad-hoc investigations, etc.) or problem-oriented policing programs focused on other types of local dynamics and situations. Based on the selected literature review above, we expect that our research strategy will yield a diverse set of targeted areas across the identified policing disorder studies. For example, evaluations of broken windows policing strategies in New York City analyzed the citywide effects of the strategy at different units of analysis such as police precincts and police boroughs (Kelling & Sousa, 2001; Corman & Mocan, 2002; Harcourt & Ludwig, 2006; Rosenfeld et al., 2007; Messner et al., 2007). In Los Angeles, evaluators compared crime trends in one policing disorder treatment police division area relative to crime trends in four adjacent police division areas (Berk & MacDonald, 2010). In the Jersey City and Lowell randomized controlled trials, the units of analysis were crime “hot spots” comprised of street block faces and street intersections (Braga et al., 1999; Braga & Bond, 2008). All area-level studies will be included in our systematic review. Eligible areas can range from small places (such as hot spots comprised of clusters of street segments or addresses) to police defined areas (such as districts, precincts, sectors, or beats) to larger neighborhood units (such as census tracts or a researcher-defined area). It is important to note that this heterogeneity in the units of analysis across studies could have varying and policy-relevant effects on crime prevention outcomes associated with the policing disorder strategies. As such, we will also classify the types of areas to ensure that the review is measuring similar findings across the potentially diverse set of locations subjected to treatment. Studies that use comparison group designs, such as randomized controlled trials and quasi-experimental designs (Shadish, Cook, & Campbell, 2002), will be eligible for the main analyses of this review. Only the most rigorous quasi-experimental designs will be included, with the minimum design involving before and after measures of crime in experimental and comparable control areas. In many controlled policing disorder evaluations (e.g. Berk & MacDonald, 2010; Katz et al., 2001), the control group experiences routine modern police responses to crime. 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