Broken Windows Theory and Today's Misconduct

Asst. Prof. Yasir Mutlib Abdullah

Philip George Zimbardo, an American social psychologist, conducted an experiment in 1969 that later became one of the most famous experiments in criminology and the social sciences. Zimbardo deliberately abandoned two cars with open doors and missing plate numbers in two different areas, one in a poor crime-ridden section of New York City and the other in a fairly affluent neighborhood of Palo Alto, Calif. After just 10 minutes, passersby in New York City began vandalizing the car by stripping it for parts. Then the destruction randomly began when windows were smashed and the car was destroyed. But in Palo Alto, the other car remained untouched for more than a week. Finally, Zimbardo did something unusual: He took a sledgehammer and smashed the California car. After that, passersby quickly ripped it apart, just as they had done in New York.

Zimbardo's experiment showed how people can get involved in violating the law even though they are not criminals or bad but the abandoned cars sent a signal that “nobody cares and most likely there are no consequences for damaging what was already broken”.

Based on Zimbardo's observations, two social scientists, James Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 penned an article in which they promoted Zimbardo's experiment by conducting similar studies on buildings and other properties in different areas. They intended to prevent or contain crimes in urban societies. They argued that addressing the problems when they are small will prevent bigger problems.  They stated that “If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, all the rest of the windows will soon be broken.” Based on their conclusions, they developed a theory they called "The Broken Windows Theory". This theory implies that "visible indicators of crime, anti-social behavior, and civil disorder create an urban environment that encourages further crime and disorder, including serious crimes".

Although this theory has been controversial at the time, it can be applied to almost all fields and situations of life. Perhaps the aftermath of the 2003 war on Iraq could be the best example that typifies the broken windows theory. Upon the absence of the law, almost all the institutions and facilities were deliberately left open and vulnerable to vandalism. The institutions whether civil or military, private or public were easily handed down to strangers by first breaking the doors and windows and leaving them vulnerable to the public. Seeing and feeling that no one cared for the damage taken place, some passersby started with robbing some items which followed later by burning the whole buildings. The disorder gave signs for others to get involved into this chaos.

On social media, the same would unfortunately happen. Some Facebook pages attacking, bullying and distorting publically, for instance, can stimulate others to voice negatively especially teenage users as they see and hear hundreds of aggressive posts and comments ongoing visible to all yet uncensored. Consequently, the misbehavior becomes contagious and creates an environment attractive to more abusive comments. Environmentally speaking, in certain communities, garbage left to heap up in one place for a period of time will deliberately or not induce others to throw more just because the sight of the garbage abandoned for a long time indicates that no one cares and no penalty imposed.

Therefore, any unmonitored disorder today no matter how trivial and destructive it might look will affect people's attitudes and behavior towards a given environment in the future.

See:

Broken Windows | Hidden Brain – NPR https://www.npr.org › 2016/11/01 

 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/basics/broken-windows-theory