No doubts, the mankind is paving its way inching closer and closer to the dooms day. Is there any way left to construe the merciless feats of manhandling? Really! A broken window is capable enough to induce a person to commit crime? Strange but undeniable as the research by the Northeastern University’s professors unfolded ambiguous results.
Initially, researchers theorised that graffiti, abandoned buildings, panhandling, and other signs of disorder in neighbourhoods forms an aura that leads people to commit more crime. In the “broken windows theory”, such attributes convey the message that these places aren’t monitored and crime will go unpunished. The theory has led police to crack down on minor crimes with the ideology that this will prevent more heinous crimes, and inspired research on how disorder affects people’s health. Contrary to the previous theories, the researchers evaluated that disorder in a neighborhood does not cause its residents to commit more crime. They found no consistent evidence that disorder induces higher levels of aggression or makes residents feel more negative toward the neighbourhood.
They even removed suspicions over these signs of physical and social disrepair discouraging people from exercising outside or encourage people to engage in unprotected sex. However, the researchers did find a connection between disorder and mental health. They found that people who live in neighbourhoods with more graffiti, abandoned buildings, and other such traits experience more mental health problems and are more likely to drugs and alcohol abuse. But they elucidate that this greater likelihood to drugs and alcohol abuse is associated with mental health, and is not directly caused by disorder.
Harminder Singh