FWIW, that’s a very politically loaded term. I would recommend avoiding it unless you intend to bait people into an unrelated conversation.
I also think it’s not a very accurate analogy.
I also think it’s not a very accurate analogy.
Broken window theory is real: imagine a random person in spotlessly clean city versus a city where there is trash everywhere. More people would litter in the latter city, I don’t think that is too controversial. Thus a run-down neighborhood with lots of broken windows will normalize behaviors that would be stigmatized elsewhere.
The unfortunate part was when NY adopted “broken windows policing”, which is to go into those neighborhoods and make lots of arrests for petty crimes, as if replacing all the broken windows might somehow reduce crime. Of course this is pretty dumb, since entrenched normalization of deviance (decades of bad/discriminatory policy) can’t simply be fixed by zealous application of punitive measures.
Of course, but...
>... as if replacing all the broken windows might somehow reduce crime. Of course this is pretty dumb
Calling it dumb seems to contradict the first quote above... If broken windows normalize bad behaviors, less broken windows would seem to prevent normalizing those behaviors.
>entrenched normalization of deviance (decades of bad/discriminatory policy) can’t simply be fixed by zealous application of punitive measures.
Why not? Punishing deviance prevents the normalization of deviance.
Curious, what would you think of broken windows policing as applied to high-crime white neighborhoods?
Citation needed. There are plenty of counterintuitive things in sociology; the broken window theory sounds plausible but that in no way implies that it's true.
But surely that's because littering causes litter?
If not identical, it at least seems closely adjacent.
I'm curious to hear your perspective; what's wrong with the analogy?