Broken Windows Crime：破窗犯罪

Broken Windows Crime Theory

It’s called the "broken windows" theory and it says that in a neighborhood where buildings have broken windows, people are more likely to engage in bad behavior. Maybe because they figure no one will care. Or there’s little chance they’ll get caught. The idea has been embraced by people in law enforcement—crack down on petty crime and you’ll also put a halt to more serious offenses. New York City, for example, used the logic to justify a “zero tolerance” approach to things like the squeegeeing of car windows. But the theory has been hard to prove. Crime did go down in New York, but was it directly related to the squeegee decline?

Now Dutch scientists say that there may be something to the whole “broken windows” thing, after all. For example, they found that cyclists who parked their bikes near a wall covered in graffiti were twice as likely to litter than people who parked near the same wall after it was painted clean. The results were published online by the journal Science on November 20th. I guess we should be thankful that the cyclists’ bad behavior stopped at littering. And they didn’t decide to, say, swipe a better set of wheels for the ride home.

破窗犯罪理论

“破窗”犯罪理论是说在一个小区里面，如果建筑物的窗子被打破了，人们更易于从事不良行为。可能是他们想反正没有人在乎。或者他们想他们被抓住的可能性很小。这个理论受到执法人员的支持——对小的犯罪行为实施打击的话，那些更加严重的犯罪就会得到遏制。纽约市就曾以这个逻辑为依据对一些不良行为实施“零容忍”， 比如在车道上招揽生意，为司机清洗车窗的行为。但是这个理论很难被证明。在纽约，犯罪率确实下降了，但是这直接和“车道上擦汽车玻璃”下降相关吗?

目前荷兰科学家们报道说，对整个“破窗”理论而言，毕竟还是有可取之处的。比如，科学家们发现骑自行车的人把车停放在乱涂乱画的墙壁附近的时候，相比于那些把车停放在粉刷干净后的墙壁（同一面墙壁）附近的人，他们乱扔垃圾的的可能性要提高一倍。这个研究结果在线发表于11月20日的《科学》杂志（Science）。我想我们应该对这些骑自行车人不再乱扔垃圾表示感谢。同时，我们也应该感谢他们没有决定，比如说去偷一辆更好的自行车骑回家。

Vocabulary:

Embrace: 支持；拥护

Enforcement: （法律的）执行

Petty: 小的；无不足道的

Halt: 终止；停止

Justify: 使…合理

Squeegee: 橡皮扫帚（主要用于擦洗窗户）

Cyclist: 骑自行车的人

Graffiti: 墙上乱涂乱画的东西

Litter: 乱丢垃圾

Swipe: 偷盗