Policing the Contemporary City::Fixing Broken Windows or Shoring Up Neo-Liberalism?
Abstract
Two principal models exist for reforming contemporary police departments: community policing and broken windows (or order maintenance) policing. Although the two types of reforms share some commonalities, they differ markedly in the level of citizen oversight they envision. It is thereby significant that the two movements are frequently conflated. I offer here an explanation for why this conflation occurs, focusing on three critical areas: police culture and organization, public attitudes about crime and criminal justice, and the activities of political elites. In each of these three domains, broken windows policing meshes more comfortably with established patterns of thought. As a result, broken windows policing supplants community policing as the dominant reform movement, with considerable consequences for the operations and oversight of contemporary police departments.