Broken Windows

In 2022, a man was murdered in Inman Park approximately 300 yards from the house my wife and I were renting. Our three teenagers lived with us at this quaint, albeit tight, temporary living situation in a neighborhood adjacent to the Freedom Park Trail.

The murder, so blatant and brutal, sent the entire community into fear, anger, and despair as this 60-year-old Inman Park neighbor was randomly hunted and executed. There is video surveillance of the perpetrators breaking windows in parked cars and stalking others on the beltline just minutes before committing their most heinous act of the evening. Truth be told, I was not thrilled with our experience in Inman Park before the murder. The enjoyment of the natural beauty of the area and the wonderful people who lived there was dwarfed by the trash on Freedom Park Trail, the defacing of public monuments to former President Jimmy Carter, the decay of the streets, parks, signage, public sidewalks and paths, the car break-ins, aggressive homelessness, and vandalism.

But the murder of Thomas Arnold was another level. My reaction to this news was no less severe than my neighbors. I’m an Atlanta native. I own property in City of Atlanta. I own a business in City of Atlanta. And I have been witness to the degradation of Atlanta for more than a decade.

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Last year, I wrote an email to Mayor Andre Dickens with data supporting my concerns about the trajectory of crime and safety in the City of Atlanta. The response was a mixture of defiance and “wait and see.” He also cautioned me that it was a “slippery slope” comparing Atlanta’s crime to other major cities with no explanation as to why the slope was so slippery. While it’s true the homicide rate in Atlanta is down from 2022, the drop in murders over the past year is indicative of reductions across the country. Murders nationwide are down from 2022. There is an abundance of theories related to COVID, post-George Floyd police tactics, and so forth. But the simple truth is the reduction of homicides in Atlanta is not unique and therefore not an indication that we’ve solved our local crime problem. Unfortunately, Atlanta still ranks at “3” on the overall Crime Index Scale from Neighborhood Scout. That means Atlanta is deemed safer than 3% of all U.S. neighborhoods.

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Your chances of being a victim of violent crime in New York City are 1 in 192. ?Miami, 1 in 169. Chicago, 1 in 115. Your chances of being a victim of violent crime in Atlanta are 1 in 105.

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Bestplaces.net publishes an index of crime from 1 (low) to 100 (high). For violent crime thus far in 2023, Atlanta posted 55.3 against the US average of 22.7. Philadelphia: 50.8. Boston: 37.3. Los Angeles: 29.1. Atlanta’s property crime is 75.4 against the US average of 35.4.

Simply put, you can’t solve a problem if you don’t admit you have one.

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So where do we start? How to we put the genie back in the bottle? How can you reverse the trajectory of a city clearly headed in the wrong direction? Fortunately, we have historical precedent.

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In the 70’s and 80’s, New York City was overwhelmed with crime, including murders, burglaries, drugs, auto thefts and more. Bryant Park was an open-air drug market and Grand Central Station was a flophouse. The New York Times called Grand Central “a grim gauntlet for passengers dodging beggars, drunks, thieves, and destitute drug addicts.” ?But by the end of the 90’s, New York’s drop in crime was nothing short of astonishing. Violent crime in New York City dropped by more than 56 percent during that decade. Organizations like the Bryant Park Restoration Corporation completed renovations to enhance beauty, safety, and visibility to public areas. I'm traveling with a group of friends back to New York this fall and can't wait to go. I feel safer in New York than in my hometown.?But where did they start? And to what do they attribute to the historic reclamation of America’s greatest city?

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Much of the improvement is credited to an almost silly-sounding approach called “Broken Windows.” Broken Windows is a 1982 academic theory proposed by James Wilson and George Kelling which posited “untended disorder and minor offenses gives rise to serious crime and urban decay.” If a window in a building is broken and is left unrepaired, the rest of the windows will soon be broken. This is as true in nice neighborhoods as in rundown ones.

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My father-in-law is a senior mechanic at Delta. He would attest that regular, dedicated maintenance of minor, as well as major systems make a safe aircraft. What deferred maintenance are you willing to accept when you fly?

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The tip of the Broken Windows idea - the simplest, easiest place to start for New York City - was graffiti. Yes, graffiti. In his 1979 article, “On Subway Graffiti in New York,” Nathan Glazer suggested the average New Yorker was “assaulted continuously, not only by the evidence that every subway car has been vandalized, but by the inescapable knowledge that the environment he must endure for an hour or more a day is uncontrolled and uncontrollable, and that anyone can invade it to do whatever damage and mischief the mind suggests.” A government’s inability to control even minor crime like graffiti provided a signal to its citizens that it certainly wasn’t equipped to stop more serious ones. The MTA embarked on a program to create a "graffiti-free" subway and by the middle of 1989, they had accomplished their goal. This was a tipping point to a much larger effort to resurrect New York.

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Now before you wrinkle your nose at this whole graffiti idea, I’m not talking about erasing the charm of the Krog Street tunnel or certain graffiti-authorized areas of the Beltline. I’m talking about Freedom Parkway, every overpass on the connector, every city park, directional signs, restaurants, residential neighborhoods, stadiums, city busses, benches, businesses, nature and even parked cars.

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At the end of the 1990's, the Mayor and Police Chief of New York mostly credited “Broken Windows” style policing for changing their city. Along with the transformation of New York, there is scientific data to help support the Broken Windows theory. In six experiments in the Netherlands, researcher Kees Keizer observed and compared the behavior of people under conditions of order and disorder. Invariably, he found that disorderly conditions encouraged further and more serious levels of disorderly behavior. In one experiment, for example, Keizer placed an envelope conspicuously containing five euros in an open mailbox. When the mailbox exterior was clean, 13 percent of people who passed it stole the money; when it was covered with graffiti, 27 percent took it. Same neighborhood. Same city. Same mailbox.

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In 2008, a researcher from Harvard University published the results of a set of experiments in Criminology. They noted that in areas where police were maintaining order using a Broken-Windows approach, crime dropped more sharply and, as importantly, did not simply move to adjacent neighborhoods.

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Over the 1990s, misdemeanor arrests increased 70 percent in New York City, the police grew by 35 percent and the number of prison inmates rose 24 percent. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, “the police measure that most consistently reduces crime is the arrest rate of those involved in crime.” In a word: Duh. And in another word: Yeah.

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This is so simultaneously obvious and ignored that it’s maddening. You don’t stop a cold by waiting until you’re being admitted to the hospital. You don’t reverse crime in Atlanta by simply arresting the murderers and claiming victory. You reverse the trajectory of crime in our city by starting with Broken Windows. You don’t tolerate the vandalism and graffiti on city bridges, streets, monuments, parks, and art. You don’t allow street-racing, aggressive panhandling, and you certainly don’t say “it’s a slippery slope” to compare our city to others. Just like no child should be left behind, no crime should be left behind. Reversing crime in our city feels overwhelming. But there is a simple place to start. There is a roadmap to follow. If nothing else, we owe it to Thomas Arnold.