George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken WIndows" thesis, dies

I'd been taking a break from the computer for the last couple weeks and during that time, Professor George Kelling, co-creator of the "Broken Windows" approach to order/disorder/crime, died.

-- "George L. Kelling, a Father of 'Broken Windows' Policing, Is Dead at 83," New York Times
-- "George Kelling: A Visionary of Public Order," City Journal

I was reminded of Kelling by a new article in The Atlantic, "Did Cellphones Bring Down Crime Rates in the '90s?," hypothesizing that one of the reasons for the crime drop in the 1990s was due to the impact of cell phones on drug sales by making them less turf (geographically) specific, reminds me.

Kelling wrote with James Q. Wilson, based on an experiment in Newark, New Jersey, where they figured out that disinvested property (houses, cars, etc.) contributed to more disinvestment and in turn, crime. By "fixing broken windows" crime escalation was dampened.

-- "Broken Windows," The Atlantic, 1982
-- "Making Neighborhoods Safe," The Atlantic, 1989

The cell phone thesis is interesting, because I am not completely sold on the hypothesis that much of the crime drop was due to increased citizen involvement, such as that laid out by Patrick Sharkey in Uneasy Peace, which has its roots in "collective efficacy" theory. Yes, that helped. But it wasn't enough.

Guns and bullets often trump protest.

Unfortunately, in practice "Broken Windows" became what is called "Zero Tolerance Policing," which makes sense at some level because police officers are trained to use force, not be "Civic Action Officers" (cf. military pacification programs).

And even the earliest interpretations of the writings focused on the policing aspect rather than  dealing with disinvestment/nuisances.


Anti-policing initiatives haven't taken hold as much in DC compared to other cities, although there is a current schism between the police department and the Executive branch in DC versus the legislative branch, on these kinds of issues ("D.C. police chief says critical council hearing 'emboldened' drug dealers," Washington Post).

As a result, many academics and others have sought to discredit the approach ever since.

More recently, I've come to believe that the best approach is a combination of Broken Windows and collective efficacy + way more training for police officers + a greater focus on directed problem solving as a structural approach + approaches that aren't just about more policing.

But my experiments with litter picking and other stuff back when I lived in the H Street neighborhood c. 2000 convinced me that Broken Windows was on the right track.

That places where properties were vacant and unkempt, crime flourished. When you picked up litter, less trash was deposited. When alleys were kept up, less trash was dumped illegally. That one way streets made it easier to deal drugs. Etc.

At the same time, focused enforcement needed to be applied to dampen crime. And more innovative programs too, like the Community Safety Partnership in Los Angeles.

-- "Broken windows/collective efficacy: Baltimore; Newark; Grand Junction, Colorado; Pittsburgh; Albany," 2019
-- "Resource: Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at Arizona State University," 2019
-- "Revisiting intimate partner abuse/murder," 2017
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 1, theory and practice," 2016
-- "The state of "broken windows" versus "problem oriented policing" strategies in 2016: Part 2, what to do," 2016
-- "Los Angeles police department "Community Safety Partnership"," 2014
-- "Night-time safety: rethinking lighting in the context of a walking community," 2014
-- "Policing: escalation vs. de-escalation," 2014
-- "Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," 2013

Tampa Bay Times investigation on the cost of emergency services associated with Walmart stores

Years ago, when I first started working on urban revitalization issues I remember coming across an article from some newspaper out west about the large numbers of police calls to a local Walmart and the high costs this imposed on the locality, to the point where it exceeded the sales tax revenue generated by the store. This type of economic impact is rarely touted when local officials chortle about the entry of Walmart into their communities.

The Tampa Bay Times noticed a similar pattern with Walmart stores in the Tampa Bay area and chose to investigate it further. See "Walmart: thousands of police calls, you paid the bill." From the article:

Law enforcement logged nearly 16,800 calls in one year to Walmarts in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties

Law enforcement logged nearly 16,800 calls in one year to Walmarts in Pinellas, Hillsborough, Pasco and Hernando counties, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis. That’s two calls an hour, every hour, every day.

Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found. Many individual supercenters attracted more calls than the much larger WestShore Plaza mall.

When it comes to calling the cops, Walmart is such an outlier compared with its competitors that experts criticized the corporate giant for shifting too much of its security burden onto taxpayers. Several local law enforcement officers also emphasized that all the hours spent at Walmart cut into how often they can patrol other neighborhoods and prevent other crimes.

“They’re a huge problem in terms of the amount of time that’s spent there,” said Tampa police Officer James Smith, who specializes in retail crime. “We are, as a department, at the mercy of what they want to do.”, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis. That’s two calls an hour, every hour, every day.

Local Walmarts, on average, generated four times as many calls as nearby Targets, the Times found. Many individual supercenters attracted more calls than the much larger WestShore Plaza mall.

When it comes to calling the cops, Walmart is such an outlier compared with its competitors that experts criticized the corporate giant for shifting too much of its security burden onto taxpayers. Several local law enforcement officers also emphasized that all the hours spent at Walmart cut into how often they can patrol other neighborhoods and prevent other crimes.

“They’re a huge problem in terms of the amount of time that’s spent there,” said Tampa police Officer James Smith, who specializes in retail crime. “We are, as a department, at the mercy of what they want to do.” ...

Many businesses paid a lot more in property taxes than the local Walmart but were much less of a burden on police. The Tyrone Square Mall in St. Petersburg, for instance, paid nearly four times as much in taxes as three nearby supercenters combined. Still, the mall attracted fewer police calls.

The story discusses how because Walmart's margins are so low, the shoplifting of an item costing only a few dollars takes away the profit from $100 of sales, so they take any theft seriously.

But not seriously enough to hire their own security personnel, which would also cut into their margins.

In developing special zoning review protocols for big box stores, dealing with security and crime issues should be an element.  A security plan should be required, and a commitment made by the company on investing in its own security infrastructure should be a must, rather than offloading it on local police departments.

Note that other retail businesses with high incidents of crime include convenience stores ("Hartford, Houston enact rules to reduce late night crime at stores, 2008 and "Disproportionate link between Circle K convenience stores and crime in Phoenix suburbs," 2011) and gas stations, and of course night life establishments.

In those business categories, zoning and business licensing protocols should require similar types of security planning in advance of the business' opening, and ongoing.

Safer Communities Journal special issue on crime and urban design

Among the journals published by Emerald Group Publishing, an academic publisher based in the UK, is Safer Communities, which focuses on all aspects of "community safety."

The current issue “Designing out Crime - Voices from the Fields” touches on the issues that I raised in the recent blog entry, "Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex," about frequent burglaries of first floor apartments at Naylor Gardens Apartments in Southeast DC and how there should be a focused CPTED (crime prevention through environmental design) approach there.

From their press release:

Guest edited by Leanne Monchuk, from the University of Huddersfield’s Applied Criminology Centre (ACC), and Garner Clancey, Deputy Director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology, the issue features five articles ranging over many aspects of Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) from England, Australia and New Zealand. All of the authors are people working in the field, using techniques, such as CPTED, which try to ensure that new buildings and developments are designed in ways that minimize the likelihood and possibility of crime.

Contributors to the issue include Nick Goldby, Senior Security Consultant for construction giant Arup, and Ian Heward, Crime Prevention Design Advisor for the Metropolitan Police, who describe how designing out crime was part of the process for the development of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in London.

Other contributors include Sue Ramsey, Crime Prevention Team Leader for Christchurch City Council in New Zealand, who writes about the extensive use of CPTED in the post-earthquake rebuilding of the city, and Jonathan Knapp, Director of SJB Urban, who provides context to the challenges of integrating CPTED into design and architectural practice.

Emerald Publishing is providing free public access to the journal issue until December 7th. Use the following details to log in:

username: safercommunities
password: emerald2013

Crime prevention through environmental design and repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex

Ground floor apartment at Naylor Gardens.  Washington Post photo by Clarence Williams.

CPTED is a longstanding practice that addresses architectural and environmental design factors that may, if unchecked, contribute to crime.  The Washington Post has a piece, "Burglaries leave apartment residents uneasy in Southeast Washington," about repeated burglaries at the Naylor Gardens apartment complex in Southeast DC ("Southeast Complex Survives as Cooperative)," Post, 2004).

From the article:

At Naylor Gardens, small bands of burglars have struck 18 times across the sprawling, 43-acre complex this year, according to the property’s management office.

The burglars target ground-floor apartments with unlocked windows or air conditioning units. They have even pulled out window frames to slip in and steal computers, televisions and other electronics.

Property manager Alesia Johnson said the burglaries, coupled with a rash of daylight muggings at nearby bus stops last year, led dozens of residents to leave Naylor Gardens.

“We have lost 50 tenants. We normally stay 100 percent occupied,” Johnson said in a recent interview. “It seems a lot of people feel unsafe.”

I don't know how the police department is set up, but there being 18 burglaries of ground floor apartments ought to be triggering a systematic response by the Metropolitan Police Department, and in fact they claim that it is (see "District police embrace crime prevention through design," a 2012 article in the Post) and the apartment complex, which spends more than $500,000 on security annually.

-- Architecture as Crime Control
-- Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design
-- National Center for Community Policing
-- National Crime Prevention Council

The photo in the article shows that the ground floor apartments don't have security bars.  Clearly they need them. 

DC should probably require security management plans for apartment buildings and complexes of a certain size, and reviews and responses should be required in situations like these. 

Naylor Gardens has 796 apartments over 43 acres, so they'd definitely have to meet such a requirement were it to exist.  Maybe because they are a cooperative they are a bit out of their depth on this issue.

In the meantime, the MPD needs to step up.