i'm trying to do a better job of recording my thoughts as i read, so hopefully this high traffic, much lusted after blog will return 2 some kind of wack fervor. yesterday i spent a good chunk of time reading through the first portion of essays in Policing the Planet, a book that examines the broader impact of broken windows style policing. i first came into contact with this methodology when i was a college writing tutor for a class that read malcolm gladwell's "broken windows theory." in the essay, gladwell, whose neoliberal pop sociology is legitimately shocking to read now, confidently asserts that broken windows policing accounts for the decrease in violent crime in 90s nyc. i absolutely refuse to fully revisit this essay but i remember a particularly infuriating section where--using the logic of broken windows policing--the new head of the transit authority bucks the trend of going after "violent criminals" in favor of cracking down on fare jumpers. in the process, countless young people enter into the criminal system for a simple act of poverty or teen rebellion. the head of transit is celebrated for making the system of arresting young fare beaters at a faster rate than ever and contributing to the ceaseless proliferation & substantiation of transit policing.
to get a fuller picture of the reality of broken windows policing, i include Robin D.G. Kelley's definition in the first section of Policing the Planet. he writes:
"First elaborated in a 1982 essay by George L. Kelling and James Q. Wilson, "broken windows" placed the blame for urban decay on the social values and behaviors of poor, primarily Black people. It argued that criminals flourished in deteriorating, disorderly neighborhoods, and that disrespect for one's community led to disrespect for authority and the law. As long as ghetto residents lacked concern for the condition of their neighborhoods, crime would run rampant; small infractions would become gateways to violent crime. Ignoring the structural factors that suppressed home values, perpetuated health and environmental catastrophes, and divested neighborhoods of essential services, jobs, government programs, and legal protections, broken windows theory blamed culture and immorality for crime and, in turn, poverty." (25)
Kelley's essay "Thug Nation" had so many thought-provoking moments for me. the first was the assertion that criminal justice system expansion was not just the product of "a sharp right wing turn" post WWII but also a part of a liberal wave of protecting African Americans from, "mob violence, to quell urban rebellions, and to address what were perceived as rising crime rates following the triumph of desegregation" (21). we see this same relationship between myopic liberal "good will" and unintended (depending on how you look at it) carceral consequences in Christina B. Hanhardt's essay "Broken Windows at Blue's" where she outlines hate crime legislation intended to protect LGBTQ+ people, part of the same pre-packaged idea of safety sold to rich white NYCers (straight & gay alike) in gladwell's essay. all fueled by development revenue, of course. as long as safety is defined & implemented by the state, it remains something as fatal to marginalized people as the interpersonal violence it forces & inspires. Hanhardt ends her essay on a similar note: "the promises of solidarity offer much more than those of safety, and provide a collective alternative to solutions defined within rather than against the market" (61). a beautiful reminder that solidarity is an active, engaged process that finds its pulse in the margins--that our power will flourish in the spaces capital has long since abandoned.
Kelley uses the phrase "broken bodies policing" to talk about the fundamentally antiBlack police state & the meager differences between the way police officers see Black & brown folks vs they way they see the more frequently marginalized & overpoliced communities they exist in. marginalized/overpoliced people are seen as products of their communities & neighborhoods except when it comes to individual criminality. broken windows policing asserts that an environment creates crime but the culprit is an individual then it refuses to put money toward what could fundamentally improve the community writ large. policing logic in these scenarios is such that it simply points to its own actions in communities as evidence of both "crime" (a creation of policing itself) and "efficacy" (departments monitor & create their own stats) & gives no consideration to the actual ripples these practices have. everything is so overwhelmingly circuitous. broken windows policing opens up a self-fulfilling prophecy, like any other targeted tactic of policing. a concentration of poorly trained, armed agents of "safety" with quotas and militant mindset are themselves the thing ruining a community & their presence & its necessary "success" only calls in more--more officers, more armaments, more arrests & violence.
i am thinking through the way criminalizing the person results in the creation of queer identity, as Christina Hanhardt begins to parse out in her article and as i've long thought about in my ongoing attempts to understand the pathologization/criminalization of lesbian existence in the 50s. the way lesbianism is made REAL first through the purview of the state--how it is made medically diagnosable & legally incriminating. i think, too, perhaps the only identity category to move in & out of legality in such a clear-cut way is gay/lesbian. or maybe this example is just more available to me as someone who begrudgingly holds (& drops?) it. i love when Hanhardt cites Times Square being called a place of "sin & decay." i hope 2 exist in this world as such, a grand site of sin & decay--to exist in & toward ruin.
Hanhardt posits that in striving to become a community of "normal" people, white rich gays defined themselves against other functionally criminalized minorities (Black/brown folks, the poor, those w/ health issues) to prove their inherent "goodness" & normalcy. this, though, is a product of social order & organization & the fulfillment of the state's initial labelling of lgbtq+ folks as a criminal "other." the project realizes its ultimate goal when queers are able to act w/ the best interests of the state--to become productive employees, to raise children, create legible family unites, produce capital, pay taxes, & bolster gentrification efforts. Hanhardt writes, "in many of these campaigns in recent years, activists have shown how the regulation of behavior deemed to be non-normative can be tightly entwined with real estate interests," going on to highlight the deaths of Dontre Hamilton, Akai Gurley, and Eric Garner. she continues, "the real threats are not those individuals whose lives are considered to be at a distance from dominant 'norms,'" quoting Cara Page (Audre Lorde Project) and Krystal Portalatin (FIERCE):
"[they are] when banks are allowed to engage in predatory practices that target communities of color and force groups to remain in poverty; when Detroit can declare bankruptcy on a city of mostly black communities and then take away basic rights such as water; when corporations are allowed to abuse other countries and depress US economies; when the US military continues to back and support Israel's oppression of Palestinian people and land" (60)
in a punitive and carceral world, normalcy means violence. thinking alongside Hanhardt, i have so many questions about the way my queerness has been "sold" to me. how my desire & position have been created outside of any desire & position i might hold within. in thinking about broken windows policing, i still cannot get over the transparency its name offers in the priorities of policing. when private property is held in such regard that its disrepair, its brokenness, is the only root cause the police state is willing to acknowledge for any of society's struggles. & while we expect the police to deny the reality of their impact on communities, it is more perplexing then that folks like malcolm gladwell might actually buy into this logic as well. that to some a broken window might be seen as more of a call for harmdoing than a police officer drawing their gun. that the end of all harm could ever be a single arrest for a skipped fare instead of asking why there are monetary limitations on how we move through the world. i am looking forward to continuing to move through this book & reading more by Hanhardt & Kelley.
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