Contrasting Views on Broken windows Theory

Broken windows Theory In 1982, American social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling wrote a groundbreaking article entitled, “Fixing Broken Windows”. In this article, Wilson and Kelling argued that by targeting minor disorders such as loitering, panhandling, and graffitti, police could effectively reduce more serious crimes prevalent in society. Since that time, scholars have suggested that the “Broken Window Theory” has revolutionized how police services conduct their business. Most major police services throughout North America have adopted some form of this theory, particularly with more aggressive enforcement on minor crimes. Proponents of this type of policing continue to maintain that this theory has resulted in a reduction of crime. More than 20 years later, critical theorist Dr. Bernard Harcourt countered in an article entitled, “Broken Windows: New Evidence from New York City and a Five-City Social Experiment” that, “there appears to be no good evidence that broken windows policing reduces crime, nor evidence that changing the desired intermediate output of broken windows policing—disorder itself—is sufficient to affect changes in criminal behavior.”  * For this paper, you are required to compare and contrast these two opposing view. In addition, you must assess the evidence used by the authors in the two articles and argue whether the “Broken Window Theory” can be successfully used within a community policing model or not. The Paper should have a thesis statement; that should clearly take a position on your topic (e.g., for the Broken Windows Theory, say whether you support the Theory or not.  – Include a cover page and reference list which adhere to APA formatting  – Paper must be 6 pages (12-point Times Roman, double-spaced) excluding the cover and reference pages.   – Your paper should have an introduction (one paragraph) and a conclusion (one paragraph).  – You are asked to use at least four (4) external resources in your paper other than the articles given to you, but you are not limited by the number of external resources you use.  – I encourage you to use the “first person” in the paper. I want to hear your opinions, but remember that your arguments must be supported by credible sources (e.g., the course textbook, other course materials, external academic resources, etc.).  – While I prefer you avoid media sources (e.g., news reports) as sources, you may use them if they refer to statistics that support your arguments/analysis.