Social Differences and Broken Windows Theory

Social and Cultural Differences
As The Economist (2008) reports, the idea that graffiti and litter can lead to more crime is an old one that was first put forward in the 1980s. The Broken Windows theory of Wilson and Kelling (1982) argued that neighborhoods that are not taken care of physically and that let acts of vandalism go on without cleaning them up or that suffer from too many abandoned buildings where there is no sense of ownership or responsibility will naturally attract crime because of the community’s lack of self-worth and general indifference. This indifference can lead to an escalation of crime from petty crime to more serious crime. The essence of the theory is that a community can deter crime by taking responsibility for itself and policing itself in the sense that it shows community pride in keeping its streets and homes clean and showing vandals and other delinquents that their activities will not be tolerated or promoted through silence. Recently Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen “deliberately created such settings as a part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter and low-level lawbreaking could change the way people behave”—and the result was that Broken Windows Theory was proven correct: the small crimes rate doubled (Economist, 2008). 
Crime prevention is critical to keeping communities safe and free from harm—however not every country and its culture are alike, and applying a theory that originated in one country and culture necessitates that the theory deal with issues related to the social and cultural differences in the new country. This is because the new social and cultural differences serve as new variables that may be factors in affecting the outcome of test. For instance, if a theory about children getting sick when they are exposed to coughing in that room is developed in one classroom where all the children come from homes that are in poor condition, the children’s background will play a part in their development of colds. If the same theory is applied in a classroom where all the children come from well-taken care of homes, the results may differ and the new theory would have to be altered to address the new inputs. In areas where poverty is rampant, communities might suffer severely from what Broken Windows theory identifies as a kind of domino-effect: small crime leads to more and bigger crime; it starts with broken windows and leads to drugs and violence. However, if the theory were to be tested in a country where this type of expression was common, the results might differ.
Nonetheless, as the Economist (2008) points out, there may still be some merit to what was explored in the testing of the theory by Kees Keizer and colleagues: after all, “the researchers’ conclusion is that one example of disorder, like graffiti or littering, can indeed encourage another, like stealing. Dr Kelling was right. The message for policymakers and police officers is that clearing up graffiti or littering promptly could help fight the spread of crime.” In poor neighborhoods, the kind of clean-up that might ordinarily be possible in areas where people can afford to replace broken windows, clean minor acts of vandalism and graffiti, and keeps lights on at night and streets looking nice may not always be possible. In cases like this, law enforcement can help shoulder the burden of keeping crime from spreading by policing these areas more thoroughly. As Agnew (2008) points out, if a strain in society is not corrected or eased, it will lead to worse outcomes.
It is important, all the same, to remember that every country has its own culture, values and social differences and that is true in one country—such as the U.S.—may not be true in another country, such as China. That is because there are many differences in the society and in the culture that have to be taken into considering. Had Keizer and colleagues tested their theory in Shanghai, they might have found that the effect of graffiti and litter had no impact over time because the culture in China did not tolerate such acts of vandalism at all. Still, that is one of the propositions of the theory in the first place—that if a society tolerates acts of vandalism, more crime will spread—so it is somewhat of a self-reinforcing principle.
In the end, the main idea is that a theory that is developed under a certain set of circumstances must reflect the parameters in which it is developed and the variables that are tested must be identified. When the theory is tested in a new environment, the new variables that are being tested have to be identified, and so do other variables that might also be impacting the results. This is how good research is conducted in the field and how new ideas are generated. For the Broken Windows theory, it showed in the U.S. that when people do not take care of their communities they essentially give an invitation out to others to come and steal and litter and commit petty acts of criminality—because the community has already indicated through its deportment that it will not do anything to stop them.
In conclusion, the theory of Broken Windows first posited by Wilson and Kelling in 1982 showed that in the U.S. when neighborhoods let themselves go, crime spread. This theory was recently re-tested by Keez Keizer and colleagues and they found that the theory was proven correct. However, were the theory to be tested in another country than where it originated then it must deal with issues related to the social and culture differences because these will inevitably have an impact on the results as well.
References
Agnew, R. (2008). Strain Theory. In V. Parrillo (Ed.), Encyclopedia of social problems.
(pp. 904-906). Thousand Oaks: SAGE.
Economist. (2008). Can the can. Retrieved from
https://www.economist.com/node/12630201
Wilson, J., Kelling, G. (1982). Broken Windows: The police and neighborhood safety.
The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1982/03/broken-windows/304465/