Wilson and Kelling

• Part one of the essay

  Claims about history of policing and how the role/function of the police has changed over time

  • In the past, the role of the police was to assist communities in maintaining order: following the urban riots of the 1960s "the police role, slowly changed from maintaining order to fighting crimes"
• Second part of the essay


  Psychological claims about how criminal behaviour can develop:

  • At community level, crime emerges from disorder - if a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken
  • Suggests that untended vandalism can soon lead to the breakdown of community controls: when a piece of property is abandoned unscolded rowdy children become more rowdy. People may "modify their behaviour" e.g not walk down certain streets
  • The 'broken windows' theory applies to behaviour as well
• Third part of the essay

  Key is for the police to focus again on order-maintenance as their primary role

  • Police should try variations on an experiment that was carried out in Newark, Jersey, in which "the state provided money to help cities take police officers out of their patrol cars and assign them to walking beats" - did not reduce crime rates but did make neighbourhoods safer as disorderly behaviour was managed through a process of informal rules
  • Police chiefs should work out where to focus their resources