CRIMINOLOGY JANE JACOBS

Jane Jacobs'The Death and Life of Great American Citiesis discussed in detail by Ranasinghe, and its importance to the early workings of broken windows, and claims that Kelling's original interest in "minor offences and disorderly behaviour and conditions" was inspired by Jacobs' work.[12]Ranasinghe includes that Jacobs' approach toward social disorganization was centralized on the streets and their sidewalks, the main public places of a city" and that they "are its most vital organs, because they provide the principal visual scenes."[13]Wilson and Kelling, as well as Jacobs, argue on the concept of civility (or the lack thereof) and how it creates lasting distortions between crime and disorder. Ranasinghe explains that the common framework of both set of authors is to narrate the problem facing urban public places. Jacobs, according to Ranasinghe, maintains that Civility functions as a means of informal social control, subject little to institutionalized norms and processes, such as the law but rather maintained through an intricate, almost unconscious, network of voluntary controls and standards among people and enforced by the people themselves[14]

Thebroken windows theoryis acriminologicaltheory of the norm-setting and signaling effect of urban disorder andvandalismon additionalcrimeandanti-social behavior. The theory states that maintaining and monitoringurban environmentsto prevent small crimes such asvandalism, public drinking and toll-jumping helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.The theory was introduced in a 1982 article by social scientistsJames Q. WilsonandGeorge L. Kelling.[1]Since then it has been subject to great debate both within thesocial sciencesand the public sphere. The theory has been used as a motivation for several reforms in criminal policy, including the controversial mass use of "stop, question, and frisk" by theNew York City Police Department.

http://sgo.sagepub.com/content/spsgo/5/1/2158244014564361.full.pdfBroken Windows and Collective Efficacy: Do They Affect Fear of Crime? Aldrin Abdullah1 , Massoomeh Hedayati Marzbali1 , Azizi Bahauddin1 , and Mohammad Javad Maghsoodi Tilaki2 Abstract The broken windows thesis posits that signs of disorder increase crime and fear, both directly and indirectly. Although considerable theoretical evidence exists to support the idea that disorder is positively related to fear of crime, the empirical literature on examining the indirect effect of the individuals perception of incivilities on fear of crime is limited, especially in developing countries. This research was conducted to assess the indirect relationship between perceived disorder and fear of crime through collective efficacy. A total of 235 households from Penang, Malaysia, participated in this study. Results reveal that high perception of disorder is negatively associated with collective efficacy. High collective efficacy is associated with low fear of crime. Moreover, a significant and indirect effect of disorder on fear of crime exists through collective efficacy. The results provide empirical support for the broken windows theory in the Malaysian context and suggest that both environmental conditions and interactions of residents play a role in the perceived fear of crime.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/nyregion/author-of-broken-windows-policing-defends-his-theory.html?_r=1Critics denounce the theory as neoconservative pablum resulting in overpolicing and mass incarceration for relatively minor offenses that disproportionately target poor, black and Hispanic people. Moreover, they say it was not derived from scientific evidence and its connection to the citys drastic decline in major crime remains unproven.Photo

George L. Kelling, 78, a retired professor, was the co-author, with James Q. Wilson, of the "Broken Windows" theory of policing, the idea that cracking down on small crimes would help deter bigger ones.CreditCarlos Osorio/Associated PressProfessor Wilson, who taught at Harvard and at the University of California at Los Angeles, died in 2012. His co-author, Professor Kelling, a 78-year-old former seminarian and probation officer, retired from Rutgers but remains a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative research institute. He argues that their theory, as applied by Police Commissioners William J. Bratton and Raymond W. Kelly, and plunging crime rates are inextricably linked. He is now concerned, though, that the critics may hold sway.In the 1982 article, which drew on writings by the urbanologists Jane Jacobs and Nathan Glazer, Professors Kelling and Wilson acknowledged that shifting police officers from patrol cars to foot patrol in Newark during the mid-1970s had not reduced recorded crime. But they concluded that the strategy had made neighborhoods safer and vastly improved relations between the police and the community.

The theory also has been buttressed by one incidental measure. According to the Census Bureaus latest American Housing Survey, the number of broken windows in the millions of homes and apartments in the New York metropolitan area plunged during the last decade.Taking care of broken windows reduces crime; taking care of crime reduces broken windows, said Professor Kelling, who is now a consultant to the citys Police Department.Referring to Mr. Garners death, Professor Kelling suggested that City Hall had to decide neighborhood by neighborhood if selling untaxed cigarettes was a compelling quality-of-life issue and, if so, whether arrest was the correct response.It seems to me that it depends, he said. Is it serious enough to pass a law against? Is selling loosies disruptive to a community? What are the consequences for local businesses?The same goes for subway acrobats or homeless people who do not pose any imminent danger. Social workers should accompany the cops, he said. We shouldnt be using our jails as mental hospitals or drug rehabilitation sites.Stopping and frisking was overused during the previous administration, Professor Kelling said, a police tactic predicated on suspicion, in contrast to broken windows, which responds to minor offenses, and zero tolerance, which he described as zealotry and no discretion the opposite of what I tried to preach.And broken-windows policing produces another benefit beyond reducing crime, Professor Kelling added: In an urbanized society, in a world of strangers, civility and orderliness is an end in itself.

Has there been any substantial revisions of Jane Jacobs' basic precepts for healthy urban development in herDeath and Life of Great American Cities?I.e. has there been any controversy regarding any of her recommendations, or have any been tried and tested and turned out to be more ideal in theory than practice? (by the way I am a big fan of the book)The only one I'm aware of is regarding her recommendations for the height of buildings. There are several counter-examples to her guidance for shorter rather than taller buildings. Vancouver is dominant among them. With the focus on commercial and services ground floors and mixed commercial and residential zoning, Vancouver's downtown achieves safe streets due to 24/7 street traffic combined with tall buildings.

http://www.pps.org/reference/jjacobs-2/Jacobs had no professional training in the field of city planning, nor did she hold the title of planner. Instead, she relied on her observations and common sense to showwhy certain places work, and what can be done to improve those that do not. Together with PPSmentorWilliam H. Whyte, Jacobs led the way in advocating fora place-based, community-centered approach to urban planning, decades before such approaches were considered sensible. William HollyWhyte was her editor at Fortune Magazine, whopublished her seminal article Downtown is for People (1958)the piece that inspiredthe Rockefeller Foundation to fund herto writeTheDeath and Life of Great American Cities.

PERSPECTIVESCities as Ecosystems.Jacobs approached cities as living beings and ecosystems. She suggested that over time, buildings, streets and neighborhoods function as dynamic organisms, changing in response to how people interact with them. She explained how each element of a city sidewalks, parks, neighborhoods, government, economy functions together synergistically, in the same manner as the natural ecosystem. This understanding helps us discern how cities work, how they break down, and how they could be better structured.Mixed-Use Development. Jacobs advocated for mixed-use urban development the integration of different building types and uses, whether residential or commercial, old or new. According to this idea, cities depend on a diversity of buildings, residences, businesses and other non-residential uses, as well as people of different ages using areas at different times of day, to create community vitality. She saw cities as being organic, spontaneous, and untidy, and views the intermingling of city uses and users as crucial to economic and urban development.Bottom-Up Community Planning. Jacobs contested the traditional planning approach that relies on the judgment of outside experts, proposing that local expertise is better suited to guiding community development. She based her writing on empirical experience and observation, noting how the prescribed government policies for planning and development are usually inconsistent with the real-life functioning of city neighborhoods.The Case for Higher Density.Although orthodox planning theory had blamed high density for crime, filth, and a host of other problems, Jacobs disproved these assumptions and demonstrated how a high concentration of people is vital for city life, economic growth, and prosperity. While acknowledging that density alone does not produce healthy communities, she illustrated through concrete examples how higher densities yield a critical mass of people that is capable of supporting more vibrant communities. In exposing the difference between high density and overcrowding, Jacobs dispelled many myths about high concentrations of people.Local Economies. By dissecting how cities and their economies emerge and grow, Jacobs cast new light on the nature of local economies. She contested the assumptions that cities are a product of agricultural advancement; that specialized, highly efficient economies fuel long-term growth; and that large, stable businesses are the best sources of innovation. Instead, she developed a model of local economic development based on adding new types of work to old, promoting small businesses, and supporting the creative impulses of urban entrepreneurs.QUOTABLEOld ideas can sometimes use new buildings. New ideas must use old buildings.Being human is itself difficult, and therefore all kinds of settlements (except dream cities) have problems. Big cities have difficulties in abundance, because they have people in abundance. But vital cities are not helpless to combat even the most difficult problems.Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.Vital cities have marvelous innate abilities for understanding, communicating, contriving, and inventing what is required to combat their difficulties Lively, diverse, intense cities contain the seeds of their own regeneration, with energy enough to carry over for problems and needs outside themselves.Whenever and wherever societies have flourished and prospered rather than stagnated and decayed, creative and workable cities have been at the core of the phenomenon. Decaying cities, declining economies, and mounting social troubles travel together. The combination is not coincidental.In our American cities, we need all kinds of diversity.As in the pseudoscience of bloodletting, just so in the pseudoscience of city rebuilding and planning, years of learning and a plethora of subtle and complicated dogma have arisen on a foundation of nonsense.that the sight of people attracts still other people, is something that city planners and city architectural designers seem to find incomprehensible. They operate on the premise that city people seek the sight of emptiness, obvious order and quiet. Nothing could be less true. The presences of great numbers of people gathered together in cities should not only be frankly accepted as a physical fact they should also be enjoyed as an asset and their presence celebrated.Intricate minglings of different uses in cities are not a form of chaos. On the contrary, they represent a complex and highly developed form of order.ACCOLADESWith humility and common sense, she taught the world how to understand and value cities through direct observation, persistent questioning and discovery. Her faith in the wisdom of local citizens lives on in the civic battles in which she participated and her wisdom lives on in the writing of her nine seminal books. The Center for the Living City at Purchase CollegeProbably no single thinker has done more in the last fifty years to transform our ideas about the nature of urban life. Chicago TribuneJane Jacobs observations about the way cities work and dont work revolutionized the urban planning profession. Thanks to Jacobs, ideas once considered lunatic, such as mixed-use development, short blocks, and dense concentrations of people working and living downtown, are now taken for granted. Adele Freedman,The Globe and MailJane Jacobs, the world-famous apostle of livable cities, almost single-handedly reshaped the way urban planners think about their profession. Planners hated her book when it came out, but its required reading in universities around the world. Alexander Ross,Canadian Business[Jacobs] believes in power being exercised by individuals or people in small groups rather than big governments and corporations. Jane Jacobs believes that most problems, if solvable at all, will be solved not by the elaborate schemes of experts but by spontaneous invention. Robert Fulford,Imperial Oil Review