In 1982, social scientists James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling introduced the “broken windows theory,” or the idea that smaller crimes — like broken windows — lead to more serious ones.
Nearly two decades later, in 2000, New Yorker author Malcolm Gladwell popularized the same theory in his book “The Tipping Point.”
“In a city, relatively minor problems like graffiti, public disorder, and aggressive panhandling … are all the equivalent of broken windows, invitations to more serious crimes,” Gladwell wrote, relating Wilson and Kelling’s theory to his experience living in New York City in his 30s.
“The Tipping Point” was a huge hit — selling over 1.7 million copies by 2006 — and the subject became a hot topic in the new millennium.
Now, 24 years later, Gladwell has revisited his debut book with chagrin, making a formal apology on stage at TEDNext in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Here’s the thing that I have come to understand about that explanation I gave about why crime fell in New York,” Gladwell said. “I was wrong.”
“For the first time in a quarter century I re-read my book. I’m not someone who likes to revisit things, but I did it and it was a uniquely complicated experience.”
Gladwell did not create — or single handedly purport — the “broken windows theory,” but in his TED Talk, he admitted that his work had a great degree of influence on New York City’s public policies for years to come.
In the early 2000s, police forces in New York adopted harsher tactics to crack down on small crimes, with “zero tolerance” approaches to petty crimes like fare evasion, littering, and loitering.
This led to the introduction of “stop-and-frisk” policies in 2002. Between 2003 and 2013, police made over 100,000 stops every year, heavily targeting minorities. In 2013, 56% of people stopped were Black and 29% were Latino. The majority of them were 14 to 24 years old.
Now looking back, Gladwell realized that the broken windows theory — which largely beget all of these policies — had been clearly tested.
“There was a classic, natural experiment to see whether that theory worked,” Gladwell said. “The natural experiment was a court case, maybe one of the most famous court cases in New York history.”
Gladwell pointed to David Floyd’s federal class action lawsuit against the City of New York in 2013, in which Floyd challenged “stop and frisk,” citing that he was unlawfully stopped without reasonable suspicion.
He won the case, with Judge Scheindlin ruling that the New York Police Department had violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments in their treatment of Floyd.
“And overnight, the ‘broken windows’ era in New York City policing ends … so this is the perfect natural experiment,” Gladwell said. “You have New York before Floyd and after Floyd.”
“If you believe in the power of ‘broken windows’ policing then your expectation has to be that after the Floyd case, when ‘broken windows’ goes away, crime’s gonna go back up, and I should tell you in 2013, in the wake of the Floyd case, everybody thought crime was going to go back up.”
Gladwell acknowledged that alongside the NYPD, the city government, and the very judge that ruled on Floyd’s case, he himself expected crime rates to skyrocket.
But instead, crime rates dropped.
“In fact,” Gladwell said, “crime undergoes a second, even more miraculous decline [than the 1990s]… New York gets rid of ‘broken windows’ and crime starts to fall, and fall, and fall all over again.”
The author went on to say that although the broken windows theory was been proven hollow, government figures and political candidates continue to parrot the theory time and again.
“For that misunderstanding, I think I bear some of the blame,” Gladwell said. “I was the one who wrote this book saying this was the greatest tactic ever in stopping crime … I told the story like I knew the answer.”
Gladwell further explores the ramifications of his debut novel in his new book “Revenge of the Tipping Point: Overstories, Superspreaders, and the Rise of Social Engineering” which was released in early October.
With 24 years of hindsight, he told the audience he had realized that it was important as a writer and reporter to lead with vulnerability and curiosity — not brazen certainty.
TED hosts two to three main conferences annually, and the TED Talks at each event are typically released online several months after they are given in-person. Gladwell’s TED Talk will likely be released online in the coming year.
After Gladwell wrapped his Talk, TED’s chief program and strategy officer Monique Ruff-Bell joined him on stage for an interview.
“Did you ever think about: What if they got it wrong?” Ruff-Bell asked. “What if it was wrong? And innocent people were going to have to experience this? What were your thoughts about that back then?”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking about that,” Gladwell admitted. “I was in a little bubble and I was seeing the world from one perspective … I like to think I’m a little wiser now.”
Editor's note: This article was updated to correct a formatting issue that caused some paragraphs to be unintentionally repeated.
Header photo: Malcolm Gladwell speaks at TEDNext. October 22 - 24, 2024. Atlanta, GA. Photo: Gilberto Tadday / TED
