The "Broken Windows" Theory and Societal Decline

I recently came across this author, Ezra Levant, and his struggle against the curtailing of our freedoms, and the hypocrisy of governments. I will be posting some of his stuff. He is very eloquent, and well worth reading or watching.

In 1982, George Kelling and James Wilson wrote an influential essay in Harper's magazine about community policing. They outlined a model that would be taken up by Rudy Giuliani, and used to save New York City. Here is an extract:

Philip Zimbardo, a Stanford psychologist, reported in 1969 on some experiments testing the broken-window theory. He arranged to have an automobile without license plates parked with its hood up on a street in the Bronx and a comparable automobile on a street in Palo Alto, California. The car in the Bronx was attacked by "vandals" within ten minutes of its "abandonment."

...The car in Palo Alto sat untouched for more than a week. Then Zimbardo smashed part of it with a sledgehammer. Soon, passersby were joining in. Within a few hours, the car had been turned upside down and utterly destroyed. The "vandals" appeared to be primarily respectable whites.

Untended property becomes fair game for people out for fun or plunder and even for people who ordinarily would not dream of doing such things and who probably consider themselves law-abiding.

Because of the nature of community life in the Bronx—its anonymity, the frequency with which cars are abandoned and things are stolen or broken, the past experience of "no one caring"—vandalism begins much more quickly than it does in staid Palo Alto, where people have come to believe that private possessions are cared for, and that mischievous behavior is costly.

But vandalism can occur anywhere once communal barriers—the sense of mutual regard and the obligations of civility—are lowered by actions that seem to signal that "no one cares."

We suggest that "untended" behavior also leads to the breakdown of community controls. A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other's children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. A piece of property is abandoned, weeds grow up, a window is smashed. Adults stop scolding rowdy children; the children, emboldened, become more rowdy. Families move out, unattached adults move in. Teenagers gather in front of the corner store. The merchant asks them to move; they refuse. Fights occur. Litter accumulates. People start drinking in front of the grocery; in time, an inebriate slumps to the sidewalk and is allowed to sleep it off. Pedestrians are approached by panhandlers.

...In response to fear people avoid one another, weakening controls. Sometimes they call the police. Patrol cars arrive, an occasional arrest occurs but crime continues and disorder is not abated. Citizens complain to the police chief, but he explains that his department is low on personnel and that the courts do not punish petty or first-time offenders. To the residents, the police who arrive in squad cars are either ineffective or uncaring: to the police, the residents are animals who deserve each other. The citizens may soon stop calling the police, because "they can't do anything."

...This wish to "decriminalize" disreputable behavior that "harms no one"- and thus remove the ultimate sanction the police can employ to maintain neighborhood order—is, we think, a mistake. Arresting a single drunk or a single vagrant who has harmed no identifiable person seems unjust, and in a sense it is. But failing to do anything about a score of drunks or a hundred vagrants may destroy an entire community. A particular rule that seems to make sense in the individual case makes no sense when it is made a universal rule and applied to all cases. It makes no sense because it fails to take into account the connection between one broken window left untended and a thousand broken windows.

Read the above in the context of the decline experienced in South Africa, where rules have been relaxed and laws flouted, all in the name of accommodating the masses; or being dismissed as being a euro-centric artefact.

From here, the article deals with anti-semitism in Canada, and the double standards applied by the media and governments. Not dissimilar to South Africa. For those of you that think Canada is a tolerant society, think again, times are changing.

Enough quotes. What's the relevance to anti-Semitic rallies?

Look again at the anti-Semitic toughs at this massive rally in Toronto. Look at the faces of the young men (and some of the young women). They're acting up. They're in Canada, and they know it's a tolerant, easy-going, multi-ethnic country. Most of them probably work or study in environments where there is some peer pressure to behave -- to be polite; to be moderate; certainly to limit one's expressions of bigotry, whether in the form of flying a terrorist flag, or in the form of calling for the death of a Jewish child.

But, together, in the face (literally, in the face!) of police, all of these socially transgressive behaviours are being tried out. And there's no push-back. There's no negative reaction. You can see they're getting bolder. Some wear masks to hide their faces -- and, although in some ways that's a sign of cowardice, the very act of being allowed to wear a mask to hide one's identity, while supporting a terrorist group, is brazen.

The media coverage of these protests generally paints Israel as the offensive one -- not the anti-Semitic, pro-terrorist protesters. The police stand by, and in both Toronto and Calgary have actually engaged to limit pro-Israel counter-protests.

And politicians? Largely silent. What lessons are being learned? Easy -- it's what James Q. Wilson taught us. It's okay to break those windows -- flying terrorist flags, holding mass anti-Semitic rallies, calling for death to Jews, marching in camouflage and face masks. That's a pretty big window that was broken without anyone shouting "stop". You can see what some of the protesters are thinking. They're acting up. They're behaving badly. They're doing things they hadn't done before, at least in Canada. And now that they're doing it, and testing limits, and breaking social boundaries -- nothing. No reaction. No reaction from the police who were there, no reaction even to the death threats, even to the criminal flag. No reaction from the media -- other than generous reportage of the protest. No serious reaction from the union members of CUPE-Ontario against their rogue, anti-Semite boss, except for an impotent online petition. No reaction from Canada's execrable "human rights commissions". No reaction from that blundering fool, Jennifer Lynch. No significant political reaction, either.

Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff have said they support Israel's war of self-defence. Great. What do they think about massive anti-Semitic rallies on Canadian streets? I put it to you that's more important to Canadians. And, most shamefully, no reaction from the Jews of silence.

Thousands of Jew-haters mobbed the street in Toronto, and metaphorically threw stones through the windows of Canada. And no-one stopped them. They heard that silence, loud and clear. And so did Canadians worried about anti-Semitism, Islamic fascism and terrorism.

You can compare it to Wilson's broken windows theory. Or you can compare it to a young child, testing boundaries to find the limits of bad behaviour -- and finding no limits, yet. There is a short period of time for the rebuke to come, before the lessons learned at those rallies solidify like concrete. Harper's and Ignatieff's support for Jews in Israel, and their opposition to terrorists in Gaza, doesn't mean much without their support for Jews in Canada and condemnation of anti-Semitic Hamas supporters in Canada. Let's look again at Wilson's warning about what happens when window-breaking goes unchecked:

We suggest that "untended" behavior also leads to the breakdown of community controls. A stable neighborhood of families who care for their homes, mind each other's children, and confidently frown on unwanted intruders can change, in a few years or even a few months, to an inhospitable and frightening jungle. Canada is that stable neighbourhood, but an audacious gang has just strutted through the main street -- and everyone was silent. If we stay silent, get ready for an inhospitable and frightening jungle.