'Broken Windows' Theory At Issue

The so-called "broken windows theory" of crime prevention gained popularity in the early 1980s when academics argued that by cracking down on community disorder issues like loud parties, unleashed dogs, public drinking, and even littering, more serious, violent crimes, could be prevented.

Originators of the theory "conjured a vision of untended neighborhoods quickly reduced to crime-infested wastelands. First local boys rob a passed-out drunk on a lark; then muggers start robbing anyone who looks like he might have a few big bills in his wallet. Residents begin to view their neighborhood as unsafe, and retreat into their homes-or to the suburbs-abandoning the declining neighborhood to criminals."

Yet "One widely read challenge comes from 'Freakonomics,' the best-selling book by University of Chicago economist Steven D. Levitt and journalist Stephen J. Dubner, which presents a controversial theory claiming that the legalization of abortion in the 1970s was the biggest factor in the crime drop of the 1990s. According to this hypothesis, the decline in the birth of unwanted, often poor and fatherless children in the '70s, led to a decline in the number of juvenile delinquents in the '80s and hardened criminals in the '90s."