His ‘broken windows’ theory altered policing
George L. Kelling, a criminologist whose “broken windows” theory revolutionized urban policing and helped make sprawling cities like L.A. safer but stoked criticism that it also invited police abuse, has died at his home in New Hampshire. He was 83.
Kelling, who had been diagnosed with cancer, died Wednesday, his wife, Catherine M. Coles, announced on Facebook.
A former social worker, Kelling had a long career spanning highs and lows. His famous 1982 Atlantic magazine article “Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety,” cowritten with James Q. Wilson, had wide-ranging influence.
Not many criminologists are credited with immediate social change. But Kelling was celebrated for having helped tame urban crime and blight, and his ideas were embraced from Newark, N.J., to Boyle Heights.
William S. Bratton, former LAPD chief and twotime New York City police commissioner, was among his admirers and employed his concepts when he tried to restore order in Los Angeles, a city that had been left battered by rioting, the Rodney King beating and the racial tensions whipped up by the O.J. Simpson murder trial.
The broken-windows theory drew criticism, however. Detractors charged that the concept had — in Kelling’s own words — put the poor, the homeless and the downtrodden at risk of being abused by police.
By the early 2000s, the atmosphere had changed so much that Walter Skogan, one of Kelling’s like-minded colleagues, jokingly told him: “When the criminological war-crimes trials begin, you and I are going to be the first two at the docket.”
Kelling demurred: Wilson, who helped conceive the broken windows theory, would be first, he said.
The broken-windows theory posited that disorderly conditions in neighborhoods signaled that no one cared, leading to more serious crimes: One broken window brought others, and worse.
It was invoked in the 1990s to justify more-aggressive enforcement of minor crimes. The NYPD’s crackdown on “squeegee men” in New York City — panhandlers who would scamper through traffic to clean windshields and then demand payment — was a classic example.
But as enforcement of minor crimes gained enthusiastic adherents among police and politicians, civil libertarians objected. They said the theory justified harassment of poor minority men, cost too much and had little grounding in research. The approach had tended to “create an enemy class in the minds of many officers,” a former San Jose police chief said.
Kelling was increasingly on the defensive. Both “the far right and the far left” had misinterpreted broken windows, which was supposed to be leavened by a dose of negotiation and social work, he said.
If Kelling’s ideas proved divisive, his personal style was anything but. In writings and speeches, he stressed the complexity of social issues.
George L. Kelling was born in Milwaukee on Aug. 21, 1935. He wanted to be a clergyman but had a change of heart. He left Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary in Minneapolis for Minnesota’s St. Olaf College to study philosophy. At St. Olaf, he realized that, though no longer a seminarian, he could still “contribute to the public welfare.”
He got a job in the Hennepin County, Minn., detention center as a child-care supervisor, then became a probation officer.
Kelling said he watched with dismay as well-meaning social projects — public transit, freeway building, the razing of neighborhoods for public housing — fueled blight and disorder. He grew “indignant” at the lack of basic safety suffered by people left to flounder in their wake, he said.
His background in social work had shown him the real lives of the poor. He would remain forever skeptical of elites who claimed to speak for them. His theorizing had a practical bent.
He received a master’s degree in social work from the University of WisconsinMilwaukee in 1962 and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His social work career included administering a psychiatric care program for youths in Minnesota. In 1972, he studied police patrol practices in Kansas City, Mo., and elsewhere. The work led him to question the value of conventional police tactics, such as driving through neighborhoods.
In addition to his wife, Kelling is survived by daughter Kristin Lee Kelling Hayden, son George and four grandchildren.