ABSTRACT
J. Q. Wilson and G. Kelling argue that signs of disorder such as broken windows are a signal to criminals that "no one cares" about maintaining order, and that this is thus a space in which to commit crime. In New York City, police and politicians have applied this to graffiti by arguing that although it may be a minor crime, it acts as an invitation for major crimes to occur. In fact, they argue that graffiti not only damages property but actually makes public space more dangerous by turning neutral space into crime space. The insistence that illegal graffiti writing is just petty vandalism has been undergirded by the "broken windows theory" advanced by Wilson and Kelling in the early 1980s. The graffiti on the walls of SoHo is supposed to tell shoppers that this is a cool space, and the gear that they buy signals to themselves and others that they, too, are cool.
