Broken Windows

"The impetus to engage in a certain kind of behavior is not coming from a certain kind of person but from a feature of the environment." (page 142)

This quote is taken from the power of context chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's, "The Tipping Point". In this quote, Gladwell is saying that people don't normally act based on the kind of person they are. The actions of certain people are based on a feature of the environment around them, or as Gladwell likes to put it, their actions are based on something called the "Broken Windows theory". The "Broken Windows theory", is based on the idea that crime is contagious. In other words, it's an epidemic theory of crime, just as ideas or products can "tip", so can crime rates. A simple explanation of the reasoning of this theory is as follows, "If a window is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares and no one is in charge. Soon, more windows will be broken, and the sense of anarchy will spread from the building to the street on which it faces, sending a signal that anything goes." (pg 141). As you can see from this example, the root of the tipping point does not stem from an individual but from a feature of their environment. A more elaborate example that Gladwell provides is the New York Transit system. When a passenger of one of the subway cars would see that there was graffiti painted on the walls of the car, they would feel that it was alright, they were being invited, to graffiti the walls themselves. What the New York Transit system did to ensure they maintained clean cars was replace any cars with graffiti on them as soon as they could. They would take a car with graffiti off the track, replace it with a clean one and then repeat this process ensuring that they dealt with any problems as soon as they could. This strategy was very successful as it ensured that any "broken windows" were fixed before the problem got increasingly difficult to deal with. The Broken Windows theory allows for insight into why crime epidemics occur. If discipline is enforced for smaller crimes, the environment in which much more serious crimes take place will be taken away, ultimately lowering crime rates and keeping the streets safe.