We all hate “urban decay”—graffiti, litter, boarded-up buildings. But does urban decay cause crime? That’s the premise of the “broken windows” theory: seeing a dilapidated and poorly-maintained physical environment emboldens criminals.

In this episode of The Studies Show, Tom and Stuart discuss the history of, and the evidence for, broken windows theory. The theory has inspired social psychologists, criminologists, and others to do an awful lot of studies—and as we’ll discover in this episode, it seems to have inspired scientists to commit a few crimes themselves…

The Studies Show is brought to you by Works in Progress magazine. In particular, it’s brought to you by this recent article on the world’s first electric grid, which is representative of the thoughtful, data-rich, well-written articles on human progress that you’ll find everywhere on the main site and its associated Substack.

Show notes

* Robert Jenrick confronts fare-dodgers on the London Tube…

* …and talks about “broken windows” in an interview afterwards

* The original “broken windows” article from The Atlantic in 1982

* Philip Zimbardo’s 1969 article, including the “Bronx vs. Palo Alto” study

* Diederik Stapel’s 2011 Science article on “coping with chaos”

* …and an article about him after his fraud was revealed

* The famous Keizer et al. study from 2008 (also in Science)

* 2014 article that’s highly critical of Keizer’s research

* 2017 failed replication of Keizer et al.

* Useful 2020 review article on the empirical evidence for broken windows theory

* 2018 Australian panel study on informal social control and crime

* Article arguing NYC had a major crime decline in the 1990s, but that it wasn’t through broken-windows policing

* Data on homicides in NYC by year

Credits

The Studies Show is produced by Julian Mayers at Yada Yada Productions.

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Episode 75: Broken windows theory

Science Fictions

Episode 75: Broken windows theory