깨진 유리창 이론에 대한 고찰

Abstract

As crime prevention programs through community environmental improvement increase in Korea, public interest on Broken Windows Theory has never been higher. Though ‘Broken Windows’ is arguably one of the most influential and widely cited articles in America, and more than 30 years has passed since its publication, detailed information about its contents and evaluation is very scarce in Korea. Meanwhile, the assumption that ‘as disorder is eliminated in public spaces, crime rate will decrease’ has been overestimated; and there seems to be a misunderstanding that the core idea of the theory is ‘zero tolerance policing’. Therefore, I examined into the history of appearance, academic character and status, detailed theoretical explanation about Broken Windows Theory, and support for the theory in reality. Then I criticized the theory on four viewpoints: lack of evidence on its effectiveness, lack of proper way of measuring broken windows treatment, undesirable side effects in its enforcement, lack of macroscopic perspective. Then I briefly presented the summed-up contents of related studies published in Korea. In conclusion, I recognized the contributions of Broken Windows Theory in i) reopening a debate on what the core role of the police should be and how policing should be organized, ii) mandating the police to target the broad spectrum of low level misconduct and anti-social behaviours or quality-of-life crime which made the city unsafe and disorderly, iii) giving a helping hand to reduce minor crimes of opportunity and a predatory street crimes. However, I put special emphasis on paying close attention in adopting zero-tolerance policing, because it may have serious side-effects with less effectiveness than expected.