NOLA crime….
I would welcome data that the broken windows theory has been proven wrong, though it is certainly unpopular in academic circles because of the amount of police contact with young men of color. But on an intuitive level, it makes sense to me.
Also, there was recently a great piece in the NY Times over the great success Houston has had in reducing the number of homeless on the streets
What's important to understand is how much mis-communication and interpretation there is around what the theory actually is, how it's implemented as law and policework, how the results of application are measured, and whether it was really ever a theory to begin with. When something is vaguely defined, people can project and reinterpret whatever results they want on to it.
In your post just now, for instance, you defined the broken window theory as racially targeted stop and frisk (began during Michael Bloomberg's term, IIRC). But did you know that broken windows theory originated in an article in 1982 (in the Atlantic of all places!)
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/
In this,
the original broken window theory article, they describe the theory in terms of
order and disorder.
"One of us (Kelling) spent many hours walking with Newark foot-patrol officers to see how they defined "order" and what they did to maintain it..."
"The people on the street were primarily black; the officer who walked the street was white. The people were made up of "regulars" and "strangers." Regulars included both "decent folk" and some drunks and derelicts who were always there but who "knew their place." Strangers were, well, strangers, and viewed suspiciously, sometimes apprehensively. The officer—call him Kelly—knew who the regulars were, and they knew him. As he saw his job, he was to keep an eye on strangers, and make certain that the disreputable regulars observed some informal but widely understood rules. Drunks and addicts could sit on the stoops, but could not lie down. People could drink on side streets, but not at the main intersection. Bottles had to be in paper bags. Talking to, bothering, or begging from people waiting at the bus stop was strictly forbidden. If a dispute erupted between a businessman and a customer, the businessman was assumed to be right, especially if the customer was a stranger. If a stranger loitered, Kelly would ask him if he had any means of support and what his business was; if he gave unsatisfactory answers, he was sent on his way. Persons who broke the informal rules, especially those who bothered people waiting at bus stops, were arrested for vagrancy. Noisy teenagers were told to keep quiet."
I don't know about you, but to me that is just common sense policing. Effective police should know their neighborhoods. They should know the good regulars and bad regulars. They should keep the bad regulars in line, and assume the best of the good regulars. Everyone is given the opportunity to peaceably exist.
"
These rules were defined and enforced in collaboration with the "regulars" on the street. [emphasis mine] Another neighborhood might have different rules, but these, everybody understood, were the rules for
this neighborhood. If someone violated them, the regulars not only turned to Kelly for help but also ridiculed the violator. "
So you see the original broken windows theory was actually about a community agreeing on a common definition of order and disorder, and working hand in hand with police to enforce it.
I would argue that what Bloomberg did with stop and frisk was designed to create disorder and break up this sort of collaboration, but that's another topic for another day.
But do you now see the problem with bunking/debunking a "theory" that crosses multiple decades of policy and no longer even has a common definition?