(Community Matters)
REMEMBERING JAMES Q. WILSON, 1931-2012 – L.A. Times A1, “Pioneer in ‘broken windows’ approach to improve policing,” by Elaine Woo (NYT also fronts obit) : “James Q. Wilson, a social scientist who helped launch a revolution in law enforcement as the co-inventor of the ‘broken windows’ theory – the idea that eradicating graffiti, public drunkenness and other signposts of community decay was crucial to making neighborhoods safer – died Friday in Boston. He was 80 … complications of leukemia … Often called the ‘father of community policing,’ Wilson … was a widely admired public intellectual who wrote more than two dozen books on American government, criminal justice and moral issues. … Daniel Patrick Moynihan … once called him ‘the smartest man in the United States.’ In 2003, Wilson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush. Wilson changed the face of American policing in 1982 when he and colleague George L. Kelling wrote an article for the Atlantic titled ‘Broken Windows: The Police and Neighborhood Safety.’ … [A]s Wilson and Kelling explained in deceptively simple terms: ‘One unrepaired broken window is a signal that no one cares, and so breaking more windows costs nothing.'” http://lat.ms/AvK6dF
Politico Playbook
Community Matters 