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5 - Critic Incivilities reduction policing, zero tolerance, and the retreat from coproduction: weak foundations and strong pressures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 September 2009

By
Ralph B. Taylor
Edited by
David Weisburd  and
Anthony A. Braga
Ralph B. Taylor
Affiliation:
Teaches and Researches in the Department of Criminal Justice Temple University
David Weisburd
Affiliation:
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Anthony A. Braga
Affiliation:
Harvard University, Massachusetts
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Summary

A 2002 New Yorker cartoon depicts two grizzled prisoners whiling away the day on their bunks. The one on the bottom bunk, presumably in reply to a question from the inmate in the top bunk, explains, “There might have been some carelessness on my part, but it was mostly just good police work.” The inmate on the top bunk seems startled by the admission.

The question to consider here is whether broken windows or incivility reduction policing is good police work. Broken windows policing is conceptually grounded on the incivilities thesis. The incivilities thesis, although it comes in several different guises, suggests that: physical deterioration and disorderly social conduct each contribute independently to fear, neighborhood decline, and crime; by implication, incivility reducing initiatives will contribute to neighborhood stability and safety, and lower fear. To the extent that this logic model is inaccurate, inadequate, or potentially misleading, incivilities reduction as a set of policing strategies may fail to deliver. This chapter will summarize the conceptual limitations of that thesis, and the empirical limitations of the supporting work. It will then broaden the discussion context in two ways: first, to provide an alternate historical outline of where broken windows policing came from and, second, to outline the elements of a police–citizen coproduced process of public safety. Given that context, it sketches the specific challenges facing successful coproduction over time in an urban residential context.

Type
Chapter
Information
Police Innovation
Contrasting Perspectives
 , pp. 98 - 114
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2006

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