MANHATTAN INSTITUTE STRATEGY PREVENTS URBAN DECADENCE

MANHATTAN INSTITUTE STRATEGY PREVENTS URBAN DECADENCE

By Domenick J. Maglio PhD.  Traditional Realist

It is hard to believe once beautiful cities like San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City have turned into hellholes. There are bums, currently called “homeless,” injecting illegal drugs in front of the public. These vagrants do not follow the acceptable protocol of public health. They urinate and defecate on the sidewalks and lie down in public places to sleep. Incredibly annoying and frightening, they no longer beg for a handout but threaten people for their money.

When the police are in the vicinity of these disgusting acts of anti-social, criminal behavior, even they turn a blind eye. Law enforcement no longer enforces the law. These out-of-control loiterers and law-breakers have somehow become a “protected class” that is being allowed to dismantle once quaint, historic cities in the United States.  All three of these cities have progressive leaders condoning the policies of lawlessness. 

The think tank, The Manhattan Initiative for Policy Research, developed a theory called “The Broken Window.” It found a connection between disorder, fear, crime and urban decay. Besides emphasizing the relationship between enforcing lesser crimes such as breaking of windows, it tends to place criminals on notice that the police will actively enforce all laws no matter how inconsequential. A major component of the Broken Window approach was to take the police out of their patrol cars and put them on the city streets to become an integral part of the community.

The officers develop relationships with the local youngsters and private citizens. They were supposed to become involved with local community leaders to develop programs to reverse the hostility directed at the community. They developed ways for neighborhood citizens to receive positive recognition for building better communities for everybody.

This partnership between law enforcement and the neighborhood was the key to significantly lowering crime rates in New York City in the 1990s during Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s administration. Violent crime declined by 56% as compared to only 28% in the rest of the nation. Felonies in the subways dropped 75%. This community partnership with police in the neighborhood enforcing all the laws, even the minor ones led to a healthier, safer and more orderly city.

Yet when we go online to look up the “Broken Window” phenomenon the progressives have used every angle to attribute the positive results of declining crime to anything but the Broken Window law enforcement strategy. Some of these critics have gone so far as to rename it “The Broken Window Fallacy.” The stakes in denying this strategy of combatting crime are great.

There is no way that New Yorkers and tourists did not see the positive changes in Times Square, the subway and other parts of Manhattan landmarks in the 1990s.  The local residents witnessed community stability return to their own block. All the boroughs were more peaceful places to live after the Broken Window approach was instituted.

On the other hand the effects of not enforcing basic health rules, decent behavior towards others and laws protecting the rights of others cannot be hidden. The relaxing of common decency towards tourists, allowing the homeless infestation, abusing police in once fashionable neighborhoods is startling. Tent cities that form on sidewalks and block local businesses create appalling sights and health conditions and have reintroduced diseases under control for decades are the result.

The glibbest progressive politicians cannot erase these vivid pictures of dying cities. The mayor of New York City, Bill Deblasio, seems to relish his destruction of one of the greatest cities of the world. Sadly a large block of progressive voters are willing to walk over the cesspool of druggies, petty criminals, mentally ill and homeless in the name of “tolerance.” Many others are voting with their feet by relocating to the suburbs leaving the devastation for others to experience. Until hipster urban dwellers realize that these socialist policies are eroding the pride New Yorkers have for their great city it will continue to slide into chaos.

The Broken Window enforcement makes it advantageous to do the right thing while making it painful to do the wrong one. Clear, concise messages of how to improve ones’ life are better than utopian socialist double talk. No one, especially government can improve your life. Throughout our history, discipline and the work ethic of the individual have brought minorities up the economic ladder.

The Broken Window philosophy will work today as it has in the past. It is tough love but is better than lies that degrade the dignity of people for the sake of another government handout. These “freebies” lead to dependency and loss of personal initiative and freedom.

Domenick Maglio, PhD. is a columnist carried by various newspapers, an author of several books and owner/director of Wider Horizons School, a college prep program. Dr. Maglio is an author of weekly newspaper articles, INVASION WITHIN and a new book entitled, IN CHARGE PARENTING In a PC World. You can see many of Dr. Maglio’s articles at www.drmaglio.blogspot.com.