The ‘broken windows’ theory really works…

Kenneth Hynek • 21st Nov 2008 • World News
broken windows, Netherlands, New York, University of Groningen

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Researchers in the Netherlands unearth some interesting facts:

Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands conducted six inventive field experiments over the past two years. They found that a wide cross-section of people were much more inclined to disobey posted signs when it appeared that others were also disobeying signs, to litter alleyways when the walls were covered in graffiti, and even to steal when the area was strewn with garbage.

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In one scenario, they sprayed graffiti on an alley wall, then attached flyers to the handlebars of bikes parked at a rack nearby. When the adjacent wall was clean, 33 per cent of people littered. When it was covered in graffiti, 69 per cent littered.

In another scenario, the researchers left an envelope with five euros hanging prominently from a mailbox. When they tossed orange peels, cigarette butts and empty cans around the mailbox, 25 per cent of passersby stole the money. That dropped to 13 per cent when the area was litter-free.

But the general appearance of an urban locale was not the only factor that produced the results: Even sound affected people’s moral judgment.

Once again, the researchers attached flyers to bike handlebars at a shed near a busy train station. This time they set off fireworks, which is illegal in the weeks before New Year’s and punishable with a 60-euro fine. Eighty per cent of people littered when the illegal fireworks blasted through the air, 28 percentage points more than when it was silent.

This dovetails nicely with other research suggesting that large swathes of the population would engage in immoral or illegal activity so long as there were no indications that they would be caught and/or punished for doing so. It’s also, however, a rather impressive confirmation of that ‘broken windows‘ theory that New York brought in some years ago, which basically assumed a direct link between crime rates in an area and the overall “cleanliness” (to use a somewhat simplistic term) of that area.