Broken Windows and Fractured History: The Use and Misuse of History in Recent Police Patrol Analysis (From Police and Society: Touchstone Readings, P 53-68, 1995, Victor E. Kappeler, ed. - See NCJ-151401)

• NCJ Number: 151402
• Author(s): S Walker
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 16 pages
• Sale Source: Waveland Press, Inc.
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Justice Quarterly, 1(1): 75-90. Reprinted with permission of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences.

Annotation

This article examines how James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling used history in developing their proposal for reorienting police patrol.

Abstract

In their proposal, Wilson and Kelling drew on recent patrol experiments and on a rethinking of police history to call for a return to an older, watchman style of policing. Their perspective on police history was further developed in an article co-authored by Kelling and Mark H. Moore. This author argues that Wilson, Kelling, and Moore have misinterpreted police history in several important ways: they exaggerated the depersonalization of American policing from the 1930's to the present, they overemphasized the crime control orientation of the police, they presented no valid historical evidence to prove that the police formerly enjoyed substantial political legitimacy, and they failed to recognize that the watchman style of policing was inefficient and corrupt. Despite these analytical problems, a revitalized, community-oriented policing approach is a goal both worth pursuing and feasible. 3 notes and 26 references