What is the Broken Windows Hypothesis? Explain in detail.?

Question

What is the Broken Windows Hypothesis? Explain in detail.?

Answer 1

The broken windows thesis is a criminological concept that is based in older theories of social ecology, social disorganization, and situational crime prevention.  It basically says that neighborhoods that show signs of decline or tolerate open criminal behavior, such as vandalism, prostitution, drug crime, vagrancy, etc. send a message to others that nobody cares about the neighborhood or nobody pays attention, and that more serious crimes will go unchallenged or unnoticed.  Where it gets its name is from the reality that when you see an old abandoned building all the windows are broken and that is because once people broke one and nothing happened, the opportunity was there to break them all.  The same rational applies to society.

The thesis further says that by enforcing petty crimes, dealing with public nusances such as vagrants, code enforcement issues, or litter, and encouraging the residents to take a bigger role in the community, it sends a message that crime will not be tolerated.  This is why you see the police enforcing street crime, arresting transients, helping organize neighborhood watch, etc.

Answer 2

Could you give a little more background, like who made it and when?

Answer 3

In short, it is that signs of disrespect for property in public view make it easier for others to show the same disrespect, thus if you don't provide constant maintainance the vandalism will tend to escalate.

The name comes from the idea that people will normally tend not to vandalize cars or buildings, however once a single window is broken, the odds of other windows being broken rapidly increases.

So, constant maintainance is a good way to minimize the average amount of vandalism.  For more see my sources below, especially the study done by Philip Zimbardo.