With the recent spate of jailbreaks, the plague of endemic crime, its causes and what ought to be done to contain and reduce it, they continue to be national burning issues. The Police had launched several initiatives over the last few years, which unfortunately have not yet made much of an impact. The President had signalled to the judicial system – through at least three rounds of pardons – that possibly too many persons were incarcerated for what he considered to be “petty crimes”. But no initiative was taken.
Maybe a new approach towards crime fighting needs to be taken. Back in 1982, the Harvard Sociologist, James Q Wilson, co-authored a paper ‘Broken Windows’, which took a contrarian position to the then received wisdom on crime – which still holds sway in Guyana. Maybe, belatedly, the Government ought to look at Wilson’s analysis and the recommendations that flowed out of it.
Up to that point, everyone focused on the “root causes” of crime. Crime would not decrease, it was emphasised, until the social and environmental “causes”: poverty, racism, bad housing, poor education, inequality, etc, were addressed. Not surprisingly, the Police loved the idea since it absolved them from ever reducing crime in absolute terms. Their stock answer to the stubborn, high and growing crime figures was: “it’s society’s fault; society messed them up” and “rehabilitation” should be the riposte.
With the US’ experience showing that incarceration – even conjoined with rehabilitation, maybe it is time the pre-emptive ‘Broken Windows’ alternative be considered. Wilson derived both his inspiration and the name from a widely-observed phenomenon. “Social psychologists and Police Officers tend to agree,” Wilson and Kelling wrote, “that if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighbourhoods as in rundown ones.”
“Window-breaking” does not necessarily occur on a large scale because some areas are inhabited by determined “window breakers”, whereas others are populated by window lovers; rather, one unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing. (It has always been fun.)” What’s true of windows, Kelling and Wilson argued, was also true more generally of “untended” behaviour in a community. Wilson was saying that culture matters.
A stable neighbourhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other’s children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become rowdier. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move; they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates.
At this point it is not inevitable that serious crime will flourish but many residents will think that crime, especially violent crimes, are on the rise, and they will modify their behaviour accordingly. They will use the streets less often, and when on the streets will stay apart from their fellows, moving with averted eyes, silent lips, and hurried steps. “Don’t get involved.”
In essence, Kelling and Wilson were arguing that minor crimes, if unpunished, led to major crimes and massive social breakdown. The goal of “Broken Windows policing” is to allow neighbourhoods to police themselves and reduce crime. The role of Police through this type of “community policing” is to reduce fear through foot patrol, maintaining order, and the judicious use of officers’ discretion. In so doing, they would only be responding to the previously unacknowledged demand in poor and at risk communities for the same sense of lawfulness enjoyed in wealthy areas. We all know these communities.
While our “community policing’ initiatives have adopted their name from “Broken Windows” policing, they have entirely missed its essence. In the latter months of 2015, then Commander Hicken adopted what appeared to be a more authentic model. This should be expanded in at-risk communities across the country.
