40 Comments

This is very good. As an urbanist/YIMBY/zoning reformer/housing advocate, I think it's especially important we acknowledge these issues, because if people think those things come packaged with toleration of disorder, they will reject them.

Expand full comment

Good article. I would like to point out that much of what he describes as disorder are actually crimes. They may not be as serious as murder or grand larceny, but they are indeed crimes. If the police are no longer focused on them due to staffing or prioritizing on preventing major crimes first (which is right) then the 'credible deterrent' effect of the police is no longer there. I'm not saying we arrest every jaywalker in sight and agree that there are approaches that can use institutional and social methods to prevent these minor crimes in the first place. But without a willingness to back that work up with the police the effectiveness will be greatly diminished. To circle back to my first point, if disorder is up then crime is up -- even if it is not reported to the police and renamed as something else. It is a bit disingenuous to claim crime is down when it is not. But I guess it is not effective for a politician to admit major crime is down but in general crime is up and our cities and towns are experiencing degraded quality of life due to that.

Expand full comment

Yes! Most of these are crimes that nare not enforced - or enforceable because of the reduced police numbers or because they're trivial.

Regardless, I agree, crime is up, whether or not it's recorded officially.

I find the writer's convoluted arguments around crime and disorder unsatisfactory. Large urban areas are filthy and unsafe because of a small number of residents. I know the other residents would agree and point at failed governments.

Expand full comment

"Disorder is domination of public space for private purposes." You hit the nail on the head. Since I moved to my area it's always had homeless people, drunks at night passed out on the sidewalk, etc. But in the last two years it's changed to include hundreds of political posters and stickers, trash and litter everywhere, small items locked up in bigger stores, spray paint and graffiti on parks and other public lands, etc.

Expand full comment

To a large extent, this is a matter of you get what you pay for. If we skimp on "policing" (and that need not be people in blue uniforms and carrying guns) to enforce laws against shoplifting and fare-gate jumping and public marihuana consumption and loud muffler noise, and .... and .... we will get more of those behaviors.

Expand full comment

One difficult aspect of combatting this problem through informal institutions is that there seems to be much more shamelessness and atomistic behavior over the last decade, particularly among young people. I think the share of the American population that would commit disorder in view of strangers despite social pressure has increased. If this is true, I don't know if it's due to lax social norms, poor parenting, increased smartphone usage or a combination of all three.

Expand full comment

I liked this post so well I subscribed! Great job.

Expand full comment

I am from St. Louis and I thought this was a terrific article. I would like to emphasize that a visible sense of community is often found in parks that are well cared for by staff and visitors. Tower Grove Park is a large park that is an important anchor for south St. Louis neighborhoods and is a place that attracts a wide variety of people. This park was established in the late 19th century and was a place of welcome for immigrants moving to St. Louis. This sense of community continues today. Tower Grove Park attracts a wide variety of visitors, is well cared for by staff and is widely recgonized enjoyed by a wide range of visitors who love and Park. B. Herleth.

Expand full comment

Great point. I live in a small town (~50k people) that is very well cared for by the city public works department. There are half a dozen parks that are always clean and in good order. The city population uses the daylights out of those parks. Picnics, events, rich, poor and everyone in between. It creates a tremendous sense of community. I moved here from a part of the world where the parks were filthy, playgrounds and restrooms not maintained, lawns weedy and trash strewn. Probably not a coincidence that not only did no one use the parks but no one knew their neighbors either.

Expand full comment

This is much needed, Charles. I live in Louisville, Kentucky. My experience working every day downtown confirms your data and experiences from Chattanooga. I wrote about this exact topic of disorder last year: https://www.sa.life/p/can-a-city-thrive-without-a-heart

"Disorder is domination of public space for private purposes." I would add to this definition: "Or domination of private spaces for purposes not sanctioned by the owner."

An example of this extension of your definition would be: using a privately-owned parking lot -- adjacent to but not owned by an apartment building -- drug dealing activities with resident(s) of the apartment building.

Expand full comment

I generally like the framing of this and think it's a compelling explanation for the gap between data and perceptions on crime. Some of the use of public spaces for private purposes can be an unintended consequence of other attempts at reducing disorder. In our town, recent enforcement of camping bans has led to homeless people and all of their belongings being much more visible as they spend time around town during the day with all of their belongings (which they used to store at relatively out-of-sight campsites).

Expand full comment

Great post, and the definition of disorder was clarifying! That said, I disagree with the framing of disorderly behavior as rational. I think the opposite is true: emotionalism, or non-reason, is at the root of disorderly behavior, and is also part of the natural state of the world. The non-rational impulse says that it's in my interest to kill, steal, or lie—to use force or fraud—to get ahead because it's easier, or it because it feels good, regardless of the impact on others or my own long-term welfare. Conversely, modern civilization took force out of everyday human interactions, monopolizing its use in the hands of government to bring order to society, leaving people to deal with each other by rational means: persuasion, negotiation, trade. This enables "social control"—but also a benevolent sense of society, the recognition that other people are non-threatening and, in fact, good. In that framing, then, disorder reintroduces non-rational or emotionalistic behavior into the public sphere and breaks down social benevolence; the criminal justice system is then a rational means of reimposing order on disorderly spaces. Looking forward to reading more of your work!

Expand full comment

Leman has it about right. There is an important issue that is addressed in passing here but presents challenges to almost everything involving the criminal justice system: that a "relentless focus" (to use a Bratton term) on crime and disorder results in unequal outcomes, and is thus discriminatory. There is the hint of an answer to this in Leman's summary of recent systematic research on policing and disorder: that "problem solving" policing works best. This approach recognizes that the local community is the victim, and any problem solving initiative worth its salt involves the community in prioritizing the local issues that lie within range of the possible. This is in contrast to policing in Chicago these days, where traffic stops are the solution to any and all problems.

Expand full comment

It's interesting that the disorder is a national affliction that seemed to spread organically across the country. Some blame the pandemic, but my sense is it's rooted in the widespread embrace of more radical progressivism in recent decades. How did this play out? We rejected traditional Judeo-Christian values in favor of moral subjectivism. We rejected rational incentive structures (i.e. we increasingly accommodating criminals, addicts, and non-citizens at the expense of law-abiding citizens). We replaced national pride with contempt for our flag, our institutions, our border, our history, and our neighbors. We rejected the concept of a unified American people. Maybe these things were just ideals, and ones we didn't always live up to, but now we've rejected them even as ideals. I doubt things will get bette very soon.

Expand full comment

“Increasingly accommodate addicts”. Oy. I appreciate this article but gosh it could have perhaps discussed why there are so many unhoused and “addicts” being so “accommodated” at the expense of the tax-paying, rule-abiding civilized society in the first place.

Expand full comment

Because half of our society has voted for a party that does not believe our government has obligations to its citizens. They choose to prioritize criminal rights over victims, illegal aliens over citizens, and government over citizens. In their defense, the other party is primarily cowards.

I asked a local cop friend about the homeless living in the city park. They let dogs run free and openly use drugs and generally occupy the space to the exclusion of everyone else. He said city ordinances preventing them from being arrested for what they are up to. If arrested anyway, they would be out again in a few hours. Giving them a ticket is pointless as they won't pay it. They can't be moved to the homeless shelter because of drugs. In short, the city has made it illegal for the police to address the problem.

Of course, I followed up with this: Can I bring my sheep and livestock guard dogs up there to engage in similar behavior?

Answer: No. You will be ticketed. If you don't pay the ticket, we'll seize your property or otherwise force you to pay the ticket.

He's not an ass. He's as unhappy about it as I am. He was just being honest.

Basically, "kindness" has been weaponized. In 1950 a bum in the city park would be told to leave. If he didn't, he'd probably get a beating and get the message. Instead, "kindness" dictates we must let them ruin their lives and decrease the quality of life around them. Just as rot spreads through a barrel of apples if the rotten ones are not removed, so does it spread through a community.

Expand full comment

Excellent article. You convince me that it is useful to separate out the concepts of “crime” from “disorder.” They are related, but they are not the same. The public has legitimate concerns about both and often confuse the two. The concern is legitimate regardless of whether one actually cause the other.

Expand full comment

Excellent post. I'm reminded of a section in Stephen Eade's book " homelessness in America" he talks about how police used to have much more discretion and could use the threat of arrests for drunkenness or loitering to manage these kinds of not-quite-crime problems. If I remember correctly, he says that in the 1950s and '60s public drunkenness accounted for 1/3 of all total arrests Nationwide in US.

Expand full comment

Good article. However, I would not characterize the disorder caused by the sex trade as “women selling sex” but rather as men buying sex - johns are often made invisible (in our minds anyway) but they are the ones driving disorder and harms, not women.

Expand full comment

The disorder is "selling sex on a street corner." It's also illegal in most places. While still illegal, brothels and using Craigslist for the same purpose is not disorder.

Expand full comment

You can't say it's all one or the other.

If you're local Target or Walmart started selling something controversial, we'd be likely to direct our ire at the seller, mostly because that's how we'd expect to effect change.

I think there's the same thing with prostitution (which don't forget, includes men selling to men). For the most part, women put themselves out there and men look to see what's out there. Men don't just offer money (for the most part) to random women to see if they'll have transactional sex.

You could, of course, attempt to control it from either angle. But it's probably easier to change the behavior of the smaller group of sellers than the much larger group of buyers, just like it's easier to pressure Target or Walmart than it is to prevent people from buying what they sell.

Expand full comment

There may be an increase in dog-related public disorder, but I don't think measuring deaths is a good way to capture that. Most DBRFs (dog bite related fatalities) occur in the home.

The more likely reason for this increase is the one put forward by dog behavior specialists at the beginning of the lockdowns: people were acquiring new dogs at a time when it was especially difficult to socialize them, which is particularly detrimental during the 12-week critical period. The ones I follow all said to expect a significant increase in consults and they were not wrong.

Expand full comment
Error