Fixing Broken Windows: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities

by Catherine M. Coles and George L. Kelling

Book Overview

Based on a groundbreaking theory of crime prevention, this practical and empowering book shows how citizens, business owners, and police can work together to ensure the safety of their communities.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684824469
• ISBN13: 9780684824468
• Release Date: November 1996
• Publisher: Free Press
• Length: 319 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.4"

Customer Reviews

must read to save our communities

one of the books that people should read to save their communities. Also give a copy to your city or county officials for their use.

A must have for anyone wanting to learn about the broken windows theory

This book is basically a follow up to the famous 1982 article by Wilson and Kelling which invented the Broken Windows theory. I really recommend this book as it is highly informative and it discusses the broken windows theory in great detail. It discusses various police operations across a number of cities which use the broken windows model in order to combat neighbourhood problems. They highlight throughout the book that broken windows methods are not about crack downs and sweeps (although do not actually mention the term "zero tolerance."). Highly recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about broken windows theory.

good transaction

The book was shipped to me fast and it was in good condition, Thanks.

Kelling & Coles Fix America's Cities

In 1982, Wilson and Kelling proposed a link between disorder and crime that they expressed through the metaphor of the "broken window." Leave the broken window unrepaired and soon the rest of the windows will be broken as well. Leave all the windows broken and the building becomes a signal to offenders that this place -- this street, neighborhood, city -- is a place in which disorder is accepted, or at least tolerated. Victimization and crime take root in such places. Malcolm Gladwell has more recently expressed this as the power of "context." (Tipping Point)"Broken windows" over the intervening 18 years has become a commonplace of public policy. Most writers neglect even to cite Wilson and Kelling as its creator. However, as is the case when an attractive idea migrates from the terrain of scholars to the public marketplace, the notion has come to mean many different things for many different commentators.IN FWB, Kelling & Coles set the definition stratight, in lucid, concrete policy analysis and writing. Most importantly, the book serves as a highly-readable manual for practitioners. The power of the idea is expressed through the success stories it has spwawned, from the NYC subways to the streets of Seattle. All serious students of public safety policy and the policing process must read it.

Great Follow up to the classic article he co-authored

In this book the authors provide a great historical overview of why social disorders are a precursor to more serious crime and need to be addressed by the "community" before more serious crime occurs. Given the wholesale movement to Community Based Policing this book is a great primer to those not yet exposed to the principles and uses some real life examples from the hard core. I'm a bit disappointed that the authors didn't explore more of the 'new' movement of Community Based Policing and how disorder plays a vital role in this philosophy. Also for any student of the movement some of the info is old hat and not as current as I would have liked to seen. The authors make a great case for how individual liberties may have to be curtailed for the good of the community and explores this dilemna quite fully. Great reading for a practioner