Product Description

This book challenges the "broken-windows" theory of crime, which argues that permitting minor misdemeanours, such as loitering and vagrancy, to go unpunished only encourages more serious crime. The theory has revolutionized policing in the United States and abroad, with its emphasis on policies that crack down on disorderly conduct and aggressively enforce misdemeanour laws. The problem, argues Bernard Harcourt, is that although the broken-windows theory has been around for nearly 30 years, it has never been empirically verified. Indeed, existing data suggest that it is false. Conceptually, it rests on unexamined categories of "law abiders" and "disorderly people" and of "order" and "disorder", which have no intrinsic reality, independent of the techniques of punishment that we implement in our society. How did the new order-maintenance approach to criminal justice - a theory without solid empirical support, a theory that the author argues is conceptually flawed and results in aggressive detentions of tens of thousands of citizens - come to be one of the leading criminal justice theories embraced by progressive reformers, policymakers, and academics through-out the world? This book explores the reasons why.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #530139 in Books
• Published on: 2005-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
[In] his new book, "Illusion of Order", Bernard Harcourt argues that the 'broken windows' theory underlying New York's policing strategy doesn't deserve much praise...He suggests that no studies establish a link between neighborhood disorder and crime victimization...Offering a critique grounded equally in public policy and political theory, the book veers widely, from the writings of Michel Foucault and John Stuart Mill to a highly technical analysis of previous statistical studies. [Harcourt's] arguments offer a measured counterbalance to the gung-ho advocates of 'broken windows' policing and a welcome warning about the limits of simplistic social policy. -- Seth Stern "Christian Science Monitor" (09/06/2001)

About the Author
Bernard E. Harcourt is Associate Professor of Law at the University of Arizona and Director of the University of Arizona Rogers Program on Law, Philosophy, and Social Inquiry.