More Proof NYPD’s Beloved “Broken Windows” Policy is a Racist Mess

The “Broken Windows” theory of policing has been around for a while now, but as the American political mainstream has begun to pay greater attention to the crisis of mass incarceration and the ways American law enforcement still looks warily at people of color, what was once a scholarly dispute has exploded into a vicious quarrel. As is often the case when it comes to the public discourse on issues of race, the argument has often resulted in more heat than light, veering toward dueling assertions of identity and away from a sober-minded evaluation of the available facts. A conversation that should be about what’s effective and constitutional, in other words, has too often devolved into a pseudo-debate over whether it’s “pigs” or “thugs” who are capital-b Bad.

With that in mind, you’d hope a new report on NYPD practices, published on Tuesday by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, would be welcomed by all. And while I expect Broken Windows critics to appreciate the data, which takes a close look at the racial breakdown of NYPD arrests for minor offenses since 1980, I’m considerably less optimistic that the practice’s defenders will respond in kind. To be fair, they’ll have a good reason: While the report doesn’t answer the question of whether it’s to thank for the decrease in crime New York’s experienced over the last 30 years, it does provide compelling evidence regarding the other major Broken Windows question; namely, whether its enforcement during that same timeframe has been racist. The answer is yes.