Posted Nov 26, 2008, 6:02 PM
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Join Date: Nov 2008
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The graffiti made me do it
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servl...tory/lifeMain/
Quote:
People are more likely to break laws near tagged walls and litter
ZOSIA BIELSKI
From Friday's Globe and Mail
November 21, 2008 at 9:14 AM EST
Urban decay is contagious because people generally behave badly when others in their neighbourhood do, say Dutch researchers whose article was published yesterday in the online journal Science.
Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands conducted six inventive field experiments over the past two years. They found that a wide cross-section of people were much more inclined to disobey posted signs when it appeared that others were also disobeying signs, to litter alleyways when the walls were covered in graffiti, and even to steal when the area was strewn with garbage.
The research was conducted in Groningen's downtown core.
"They were really time-consuming, some of these experiments," said Kees Keizer, one of the researchers.
In one scenario, they sprayed graffiti on an alley wall, then attached flyers to the handlebars of bikes parked at a rack nearby. When the adjacent wall was clean, 33 per cent of people littered. When it was covered in graffiti, 69 per cent littered.
In another scenario, the researchers left an envelope with five euros hanging prominently from a mailbox. When they tossed orange peels, cigarette butts and empty cans around the mailbox, 25 per cent of passersby stole the money. That dropped to 13 per cent when the area was litter-free.
But the general appearance of an urban locale was not the only factor that produced the results: Even sound affected people's moral judgment.
Once again, the researchers attached flyers to bike handlebars at a shed near a busy train station. This time they set off fireworks, which is illegal in the weeks before New Year's and punishable with a 60-euro fine. Eighty per cent of people littered when the illegal fireworks blasted through the air, 28 percentage points more than when it was silent.
The researchers conducted the experiments to test the Broken Window Theory put forward by authors James Wilson and George Kelling in the 1980s. It argued that "fixing broken windows" - or removing signs of urban decay - does more to reduce crime than conventional policing based on responding to incidents.
"If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside," they wrote.
In 1985, Mr. Kelling consulted for the New York City Transit Authority: Under his guidance, the city spent the next five years cleaning every car in the city's sprawling subway system. In the mid-1990s, New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani adopted the strategy as "zero tolerance," with strict policing of "squeegees," public drinking, urinating and subway-fare evasion. The result was a significant and long-lasting drop in both petty and major crime.
The researchers also looked at the "Cialdini effect," namely that people will do something if they observe others doing it.
The researchers went beyond this, writing that "there is another, goal-driven mechanism at work as well," a "hedonic goal directed at feeling better right now" - the small pleasure one might derive from chucking trash into the road instead of diligently finding a trash can, if they could get away with it.
Basically, they found, people don't behave appropriately when they don't have to. "People don't comply with rules in general. If you state a rule, make sure that the environment shows people complying," Mr. Keizer said.
Policy makers and local politicians should "underline the membership of a community. Make them responsible for their streets, make them responsible for the houses of the neighbours," he added.
That was the mission in Mississauga, Ont., which has had the lowest rate of crime occurrences per capita of all large Canadian cities every year since 2000.
After graffiti spread along the transit line, the city launched an extensive clean-up effort and now relies on residents to report graffiti, says Ashley Lyons, who is programs co-ordinator of Safe City Mississauga.
Ms. Lyons said that like broken windows lining an abandoned building, graffiti "doesn't really reflect a good neighbourhood or a sense of pride in the neighbourhood. That's what we hope will happen when people report the graffiti: We can take it down quickly."
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