New York in the 80s was one of the most dangerous places in the civilized world, the city was committed one and a half thousand serious crimes every day, and the dirty streets were full of robbers, vagabonds and beggars. The subway had a particularly post-apocalyptic look - it was dangerous to travel in it even during the day. The filthy and chilly New York subway stations were barely lit and swarmed with criminal elements, and its cold cars, even more littered than the streets, were covered with a thick layer of graffiti, both inside and out. Most people passed through the turnstiles without tokens or jumped over them, often breaking them along with the token holders.
It was against this background that American sociologists D. Wilson and D. Kelling, in the course of their reflections on what drives criminal behavior, came to an understanding of the principle, which is classically formulated as follows: “If one glass is broken in a building and it will not be replaced, then after a while not a single whole window will remain in it. In other words, an example of social tolerance for disorder, offenses, even the smallest ones, provokes a powerful growth of both themselves and more serious crimes.
One of the earliest applications of the theory of broken windows was the work of the new director of the New York subway, David Gunn. Taking office in the mid-1980s, he, under uncomprehending public scrutiny, focused enormous efforts and funds on the fight against graffiti, seeing in it both a symbol and one of the causes of chaos. Washing points were installed at the end points of the routes, and if the car arrived with new graffiti, it was washed during a turn or taken out of service until it was completely refined, without mixing it with clean ones. At first, the teenagers actively continued to engage in vandalism, sneaked into the depot at night and painted everything again, but the metro employees methodically continued to wash the cars day after day - and their enthusiasm quickly subsided. In the 90s, tightened control over free riders was added to this,and by the end of the decade, 75% fewer crimes of any kind were committed in the metro. Similar actions were carried out throughout the city. A targeted focus on combating previously ignored minor offenses (throwing garbage, graffiti, indecent behavior, drunkenness in public places) was followed by a sharp decline in both their number and the number of more serious crimes, and New York by the turn of the millennium became one of the most safe megacities of the world.and the number of more serious crimes, and by the turn of the millennium New York became one of the safest cities in the world.and the number of more serious crimes, and by the turn of the millennium New York became one of the safest cities in the world.
It must be admitted that the theory of broken windows has been criticized and caused a lot of controversy, but few people doubt the fact that it places on the criminological plane the most important driving force of human behavior, including destructive one - the instinct of imitation. When many people jump over the turnstiles and no one stops them, others, also not eager to pay for tokens, follow their example, and still others, perceiving a signal of social approval or at least indifference. Violation of a number of small norms by these people makes them more tolerant of the idea of violation of more significant norms both by themselves and by those around them, which accelerates the process even more, escalating the overall criminal situation as a whole. Leo Tolstoy gives a beautiful allegory,showing how the theory of broken windows works in the sphere of the moral life of the individual ("The Way of Life"):
The truth is that the vast majority of people, including very smart people, have flexible and unstable concepts of the border between what is permitted and what is not permitted. Usually, we only proudly assure ourselves that our decisions are driven by beliefs and principles, while they are determined by many random external influences, and example is the most important of them.
Daniel Ariely, the world's foremost behavioral economist, has conducted a large series of qualitative experiments to support this. In one of them, people were given pieces of paper with 20 simple math problems that anyone could easily solve, provided they had enough time. People had to solve as many problems as they could in 5 minutes, and for each solved problem, according to the condition, they were paid a certain amount of money. As the time elapsed, the experimenters said, “Put your pens down and count how many tasks you have completed correctly. Then take your pieces of paper and go to the back of the audience, destroy them by passing them through the shredder, then go back and name the number of tasks you completed correctly, after which you will be paid accordingly. What the participants in the experiment, however, did not knowso it is that the shredder was modified and subsequently the researchers could recover the information and find out how many people actually solved the problems. They found that on average people solved 4 problems, although they reported a solution of 6.
In the second version of the experiment, a person sat down in the audience, who got up 30 seconds before the time expired and declared that he had solved all the problems. It became obvious to the participants in the experiment that he cheated, because he clearly could not solve all the problems during this time, but the leaders of the experiment pay him in full and do not express any suspicion. This means that deception does not receive condemnation and gets away with it. The dishonesty of the participants in the experiment increases.
In the third version, the planted actor is dressed in a sweatshirt with the symbols of another university, competing with the one to which the other participants in the experiment belong. When he receives payment for completing all 10 tasks, an example of violation of the rules and deception comes from a representative of another, competitive social group - the level of dishonesty even drops somewhat (the desire to morally assert itself works in contrast: "I am not like him").
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In the fourth version, before the test, people were asked how many commandments from the Bible they remember and can name. This very fact significantly reduces the number of people resorting to deception. In another experiment, it was found that people often cheat for money and cheat in relation to experimenters who are impolite to them, and, conversely, the level of honesty in relation to amiable and pleasant experimenters increases dramatically.
All this perfectly illustrates the extraordinary situational mobility of human ideas about what is permissible and the dependence of decisions on many random factors and circumstances, and not on some stable beliefs and moral principles, as many continue to naively believe. The choice between honesty and dishonesty, decency and meanness is constantly determined by even such banal things as mood, physical well-being, personal sympathy or antipathy for this or that person, whether they first talked to us about the Bible or something else - in general, practically every little thing. Is it worth it in this light to be surprised at the power of example? Dovlatov rightly notes ("Zone"):
One of the main conclusions from all this is that not our admonitions, but our deeds, the way we build our life, our personality create an environment that shapes the behavior of people around, including children, and this responsibility must be recognized … In turn, we and our moral decisions are also deeply influenced by the environment created by the personalities of those around us, examples of their way of life, its orderliness or disorder, therefore it is so important to be selective about the circle of our communication. Further, showing other people the disorder in their lives, in any of its areas from the most fundamental to our appearance, showing broken glass in it, we often provoke them to enlarge this disorder and throw a couple of stones into still whole windows.
Minor sins, minor offenses, minor misconduct, minor betrayal of oneself, deviations and compromises are at the heart of every major collapse and fall. We are deceived by their seeming smallness and do not see their cumulative elemental power, imperceptible to the eye and therefore especially dangerous.
Broken windows, wherever they are, whether inside ourselves or in the space around, must therefore be replaced in a timely manner, otherwise their fight will inevitably turn into an accelerating chain reaction. This allows you to save the entire building entirely from premature decay and sends signals to the outside world that create "circumstances of time and place conducive to good", which Dovlatov writes about, changing it for the better much more than it might seem at first glance.
© Oleg Tsendrovsky