Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities by George Kelling and Catherine Coles is a sociology book about petty urban crime and strategies to contain it. The title comes from the paradigm of the following example:

Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside.

Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants there or breaking into cars.

A successful strategy for preventing vandalism, say the book's authors, is to fix the problems when they are small. Repair the broken windows within a short time, say, a day or a week, and the tendency is that vandals are much less likely to break more windows or do further damage. Clean up the sidewalk every day, and the tendency is for litter not to accumulate (or for the rate of littering to be much less).

Mayor Giuliani adopted this strategy in New York City. He had the police strictly enforce the law against subway fare evasion and stopped (some say persecuted) the "squeegee men" who had been wiping windshields of stopped cars and demanding payment. Rates of more serious crimes fell significantly.

Reference:

  • George Kelling and Catherine Coles. Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities, ISBN 0684837382

See also: broken window fallacy