Cleaning up crime in Lowell

BROKEN windows are easier to repair than broken people. Cash-strapped cities eager to suppress crime should put more emphasis on physical cleanup operations in neighborhood "hot spots" and less on police overtime and other costly crime-fighting efforts.

The "broken windows" theory, posited in 1982, has gone in and out of favor. Proponents argue that if police pay attention to minor offenses, such as urban blight and panhandling, they can reduce fear and prevent serious crime. A recent article in the journal Criminology by Harvard researcher Anthony Braga and Suffolk University researcher Brenda Bond highlights a 2005 controlled study in Lowell, a city of 105,000, where the authors analyzed 34 "crime and disorder hot spots." Half received routine levels of police service. The other half received special attention, ranging from cleaning and securing empty lots to connecting problem tenants with social services.

Lowell experienced a 20 percent reduction in calls to police in the areas that received special attention - powerful evidence for the broken windows theory. Pointedly, cleaning up the physical environment led to the largest reduction in crime. Misdemeanor arrests proved less effective than cleanups. And the intensification of social services had almost no effect. Those results could differ over a longer study period. But in a time of shrinking municipal budgets, city officials ignore such findings at their own peril.

Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, who headed the Lowell Police Department at the time of the study, brought many of the place-oriented policing strategies with him to Boston. The ongoing challenge, he says, is to convince patrol officers to adopt scientifically based policing strategies and ensure that district captains are accountable for the results. Some police officers may even see a financial drawback to working smarter. Boston, for example, spent nearly $48 million on police overtime last year, an unsustainable burden at a time when the city faces a potential $140 million budget shortfall. A fraction of that expense used to secure empty buildings could prove just as or more effective at controlling crime than overtime spending.

It shouldn't be hard for city officials to establish a link. They already collect reams of public works and police data that could be analyzed, cross-referenced, and made available to the public through the mayor's soon-to-be-launched Boston About Results online database.

Meanwhile, urban residents should rest easier knowing that they can protect themselves not only by reporting crime but by reporting the harbingers of crime, such as broken windows, to city officials.