Seattle
The eminent social scientist James Q. Wilson died last week. He was a conservative I greatly admired. Fewer of them around these days. His "Broken Windows" essay reinvented policing and made crime-fighting stars of Bill Bratton and others. I was fortunate to take a seminar in municipal policing in the late '80s taught by "Windows" co-author George Kelling, with guest lecturers such as Wilson and Bratton. There are many reasons for the sharp declines in capital crime, but a small portion of it owes to Wilson and Kelling's work.
The eminent social scientist James Q. Wilson died last week. He was a conservative I greatly admired. Fewer of them around these days. His "Broken Windows" essay reinvented policing and made crime-fighting stars of Bill Bratton and others. I was fortunate to take a seminar in municipal policing in the late '80s taught by "Windows" co-author George Kelling, with guest lecturers such as Wilson and Bratton. There are many reasons for the sharp declines in capital crime, but a small portion of it owes to Wilson and Kelling's work.