Illusion of Order: The False Promise of Broken Windows Policing - Hardcover

Harcourt, Bernard E.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0674004728 ISBN 13: 9780674004726

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 2001

Synopsis

This is the first book to challenge the "broken-windows" theory of crime, which argues that permitting minor misdemeanors, such as loitering and vagrancy, to go unpunished only encourages more serious crime. The theory has revolutionized policing in the United States and abroad, with its emphasis on policies that crack down on disorderly conduct and aggressively enforce misdemeanor laws.

The problem, argues Bernard Harcourt, is that although the broken-windows theory has been around for nearly thirty years, it has never been empirically verified. Indeed, existing data suggest that it is false. Conceptually, it rests on unexamined categories of "law abiders" and "disorderly people" and of "order" and "disorder," which have no intrinsic reality, independent of the techniques of punishment that we implement in our society.

How did the new order-maintenance approach to criminal justice--a theory without solid empirical support, a theory that is conceptually flawed and results in aggressive detentions of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens--come to be one of the leading criminal justice theories embraced by progressive reformers, policymakers, and academics throughout the world? This book explores the reasons why. It also presents a new, more thoughtful vision of criminal justice.

About this title

About the Author:

Bernard Harcourt is Chair and Professor of Political Science and Julius Kreeger Professor of Law at the University of Chicago.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/pdf/HARILL_excerpt.pdf

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0674004728
• ISBN 13: 9780674004726
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 304