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In his landmark book The Tipping point-How
Little things can make a Big Difference, Malcolm
Gladwell illustrated how what seems like a small
change in behavior can have an enormous impact on a
society.
I was reminded of it recently when I heard a
brilliant presentation given by Anthony Campos, Chief
of the Newark Police Department, at this year’s state
Clean Communities Conference in Jersey City. Chief
Campos eloquently spoke about reducing litter in the
City of Newark.
It immediately made me think of something I had
read in The Tipping Point. In that book,
Gladwell examines the dramatic drop in crime in New
York City in the mid-1990's.
He attributes that crime decrease with a two step
approach taken by the city- first with cracking down
against graffiti on subway cars and then second,
prosecuting toll jumpers(fare-beaters) in the New York
City subway system.
As reported by Gladwell in the book, it really
began when
New York City
hired a new subway director named David Gunn.
“The graffiti was symbolic of the collapse of the
system,” said Gunn in The Tipping Point (Page
142).
He thus made his focus on waging a successful all
out battle to clean the subway trains from graffiti
and then keeping them clean, which he did. After this
war on graffiti was in its sixth year the Transit
Authority hired William Bratton as the new head of the
transit police.
Bratton made the next focus of the anti-crime campaign
cracking down on fare-beaters, those individuals who
would jump over turnstiles and not pay the token
required to ride a subway train.
According to Gladwell, Bratton took this approach
because he(Bratton) believed “that, like graffiti,
fare-beating could be a signal, a small expression of
disorder that invited a much more serious crime.”
(Page 144.)
In both cases, the department at first had some
resistance from the rank and file officers, who seem
to think it might be a waste of time to focus on
graffiti and fare-beating on the subways when more
serious crimes were being committed around the city.
But Gunn and Bratton both held fast in their
beliefs that by focusing on minor crimes, bigger
crimes could be prevented. They turned out to be
correct- during that time crime in New York was
drastically reduced.
What changed the attitude of the rank and file
police officers towards supporting this approach
occurred as almost a side benefit to Bratton’s
strategy of stopping toll beaters on the subways. As
Gladwell reporters, a check was run on all of those
who were caught. In the author’s own words; “Sure
enough, one out of seven arrests had an outstanding
warrant for a previous crime, and one out of twenty
was carrying a weapon of some sort. Suddenly it wasn’t
hard to convince police officers that tackling
fare-beating made sense.” (Page 145.)
I was reminded of this while listening to the
presentation given by police chief Campos. He also
brought up the idea that one challenge for a police
force trying to combat litter prevention is to
convince the everyday ‘on the beat’ police officer
that it is a valid issue to deal with when more
violent crimes are being committed.
Perhaps if we use the
New York City
program as a reference, we can illustrate to a police
force here in New Jersey that its efforts in enforcing
litter prevention could lead to a reduction in overall
crime.
Now, I’m certainly not suggesting that we put
people in prison for littering. But the annoyance of
having to pay a ticket or show up in a courtroom could
serve as a real deterrent to most of us.
Looking at New York City as a model, there might
be these side benefits:
-The crack down on littering could lead to the
apprehension of more serious criminals.
-It will send a signal that the community is
taking control of its neighborhoods.
That is, as implied by Gladwell is The
Tipping Point, if a community is willing to
enforce tough standards on litter prevention, then
maybe it will send a signal to more dangerous
criminals that their activity will not be tolerated,
either.
-More importantly, it could lead to cleaner
neighborhoods in our state.
If it worked in New York City with graffiti and
toll jumping as a tipping point for crime reduction,
perhaps it could work likewise in New Jersey with a
zero tolerance for litter.
Additionally, I also believe that individuals who
don’t litter will be better overall citizens. So
getting a community to take pride in its appearance
can also have the spin off effect of have a more law
abiding citizenry,
In conclusion, I’d like to thank Newark police chief
Campos again for his inspiriting presentation and I
wish him the best of luck in his endeavors to reduce
litter- and crime! |
