Essay on the Broken Windows Theory

The broken window theory according to Wilson and Kelling was used as a metaphor for the disorder. It linked disorder among communities. Wilson and Kelling saw serious crime having more lengthy events thus concluding that crime was from disorders and that if the disorders were eliminated, then crimes would not occur. Their theory states that the prevalence of the disorder is the one that has created fear in peoples minds that they are unsafe. Their theory stated that such withdrawals are the ones that weekend social controls and kept security in check. The theory also had zero tolerance policies whereby there was strict punishment with the intention of eliminating bad behavior. This is because unrestrained crimes created the impression that there was nobody in control (Maguire, 1996).

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From the respective works of Innes, Davis, and Shearing and Stenning, the benefits and drawbacks of the physical architecture of space, surveillance, and private policing include; Private policing has led to maximum investigation of a suspect whereby the investigations cannot interfere with this is seen when the suspect is termed as The police property (Maguire, 1996).Another benefit is that the private policing can conduct itself in ways that the public cannot this has made it have more added advantages. The other benefit of private policies is that they prevent crime from happening. This means that they do not mostly aim at crimes which have already happened but those that are yet to happen. Ironically they are also funded by the government among other sources. The drawbacks are that they take longer in their investigations due to carrying out the complete investigation. The other drawbacks are that they are mostly viewed as private businesses which are there to make profits.

Based on the physical architecture of space is that there are five types of spaces which are used as factors of categorizing criminology investigations. There benefit that space limited crimes because there is personal responsibility in a spaced area compared to a place occupied by many people. This is due to a defensible space being provided by nature itself an example of natural defense protection is territories where one will feel that a place is sacred and prefer not to perform a crime there (Maguire, 1996). The drawbacks at the same time space can lead to the performance of a crime.

The benefit of Surveillance is that one can gather evidence of an act of crime; the other benefit as per the named scholars was that surveillance helped one to monitor happenings and scenarios (Maguire, 1996). They also acted as a security device where one cannot commit crimes where there is a CCTV. The drawback is that surveillance is vulnerable where one can be able to go about performing a crime without going unnoticed. The other drawback is that surveillance interferes with the privacy of a person or institution.

Reference

Maguire, K. (Ed.). (1996). Sourcebook of criminal justice statistics 1995. Diane Publishing.