![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adrian_turtleThe Boston Globe has an editorial about the importance of what they call "fixing broken windows."
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/02/13/cleaning_up_crime_in_lowell/
They refer to statistics about how effective it is to use police in various ways that are hoped to prevent crime from escalating in a run-down neighborhood where minor crimes are common. 15-25 years ago, it seemed like I only heard about "broken windows" crime prevention policies in terms of intensive police efforts to arrest small-scale vandals and trespassers, impose youth curfews, and so forth.
The Globe editorial isn't really talking about that. Most of the editorial is about "the broken windows theory" and "crime and disorder hot spots" in Lowell, getting either routine police service or special attention, and the areas receiving special attention stopped calling the police so often. Well trained by the language patterns of the Detroit News of the 1980s (or even the Ann Arbor News, or the Ithaca Journal), I flinched a little. I thought they must be referring to arresting panhandlers, pot dealers, and those groups of obnoxious teenagers who get drunk and make too much noise late at night on streetcorners. They may be technically breaking laws, but it's hard for me to believe the police are reducing the risk of murder or grand larceny by arresting them. So I was pleasantly surprised to see them distinguish between cleaning up places and arresting people, and then say it was more helpful to clean up the places.
Something else I noticed was the study saying "cleaning and securing empty lots" and the Globe summarizing it as "cleanups." I know perfectly well why the Globe could not possibly use the headline, "Good fences make good neighbors." The line is too well-known as pointing the other way. (It would have been nice to put it in the body of the editorial. After almost 100 years, we finally have statistical evidence of repairing fences making better neighbors. North of Boston, even!)
I used to walk to work from the Lowell commuter rail station, last summer. It was pretty dismal-looking. There were hardly any pedestrians, and people at work and the train station said I was crazy for walking (not just in bad weather. Generally.) It's hard for me to think about crime in Lowell without remembering the morning I had envelopes to mail, having neglected to drop them at the post office as I ran for the train in the morning. So instead of just walking down the street as usual, I was walking with envelopes in my hand, looking for one of those familiar blue post-office boxes. When I didn't see one after half a mile, I started peering down side streets in search of them. When I didn't see one after a mile, I went into a store and asked. The clerk told me the post office had taken them out to protect them from vandals. Or maybe thieves, she wasn't sure. But they'd all been gone for a few years. It seemed like a symptom of a broken community.
Another such symptom (possibly of the community, possibly of the narrators) turned up on one of the rare occasions when I was riding a local bus from the train station. (Lowell's local buses are...better than nothing. Some routes run every 70 minutes, others every 40 or every 80 minutes. They are of limited usefulness for connecting to the train which runs every half hour, and the last bus is at 5:30pm.) Somebody was talking about either the city or the state's plans to plant trees beside the main road that runs through Lowell. Not the expressway, but the biggest road with houses and schools and businesses next to it. I thought it was a great idea. Redbird had told me about a similar plan in NYC, already well started, intended to reduce air pollution as well as improving less measurable qualities. A couple of longtime Lowell residents, beside me on the bus, were complaining about what a stupid plan it was, what a monumental waste of money. They were sure as soon as the trees were planted they would be knocked down and it would all be for nothing. I asked if they meant knocked down by snowplows. They didn't expect saplings planted in the summer to last until snowfall, because vandals would smash them all.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/editorials/articles/2009/02/13/cleaning_up_crime_in_lowell/
They refer to statistics about how effective it is to use police in various ways that are hoped to prevent crime from escalating in a run-down neighborhood where minor crimes are common. 15-25 years ago, it seemed like I only heard about "broken windows" crime prevention policies in terms of intensive police efforts to arrest small-scale vandals and trespassers, impose youth curfews, and so forth.
The Globe editorial isn't really talking about that. Most of the editorial is about "the broken windows theory" and "crime and disorder hot spots" in Lowell, getting either routine police service or special attention, and the areas receiving special attention stopped calling the police so often. Well trained by the language patterns of the Detroit News of the 1980s (or even the Ann Arbor News, or the Ithaca Journal), I flinched a little. I thought they must be referring to arresting panhandlers, pot dealers, and those groups of obnoxious teenagers who get drunk and make too much noise late at night on streetcorners. They may be technically breaking laws, but it's hard for me to believe the police are reducing the risk of murder or grand larceny by arresting them. So I was pleasantly surprised to see them distinguish between cleaning up places and arresting people, and then say it was more helpful to clean up the places.
Something else I noticed was the study saying "cleaning and securing empty lots" and the Globe summarizing it as "cleanups." I know perfectly well why the Globe could not possibly use the headline, "Good fences make good neighbors." The line is too well-known as pointing the other way. (It would have been nice to put it in the body of the editorial. After almost 100 years, we finally have statistical evidence of repairing fences making better neighbors. North of Boston, even!)
I used to walk to work from the Lowell commuter rail station, last summer. It was pretty dismal-looking. There were hardly any pedestrians, and people at work and the train station said I was crazy for walking (not just in bad weather. Generally.) It's hard for me to think about crime in Lowell without remembering the morning I had envelopes to mail, having neglected to drop them at the post office as I ran for the train in the morning. So instead of just walking down the street as usual, I was walking with envelopes in my hand, looking for one of those familiar blue post-office boxes. When I didn't see one after half a mile, I started peering down side streets in search of them. When I didn't see one after a mile, I went into a store and asked. The clerk told me the post office had taken them out to protect them from vandals. Or maybe thieves, she wasn't sure. But they'd all been gone for a few years. It seemed like a symptom of a broken community.
Another such symptom (possibly of the community, possibly of the narrators) turned up on one of the rare occasions when I was riding a local bus from the train station. (Lowell's local buses are...better than nothing. Some routes run every 70 minutes, others every 40 or every 80 minutes. They are of limited usefulness for connecting to the train which runs every half hour, and the last bus is at 5:30pm.) Somebody was talking about either the city or the state's plans to plant trees beside the main road that runs through Lowell. Not the expressway, but the biggest road with houses and schools and businesses next to it. I thought it was a great idea. Redbird had told me about a similar plan in NYC, already well started, intended to reduce air pollution as well as improving less measurable qualities. A couple of longtime Lowell residents, beside me on the bus, were complaining about what a stupid plan it was, what a monumental waste of money. They were sure as soon as the trees were planted they would be knocked down and it would all be for nothing. I asked if they meant knocked down by snowplows. They didn't expect saplings planted in the summer to last until snowfall, because vandals would smash them all.
