The 'broken windows' theory

Our HBO professor introduced an interesting theory in class called the ‘broken windows’ theory. He gave the example of an experiment that was conducted in a relatively poor district of New York, where a brand new BMW car was left abandoned on the street. The experiment involved recording the reactions of various people passing by this swanky car, which was conspicuously placed within this poor neighbourhood. It was observed that most passerbies didn’t even notice that the car was there, and none of them tried to vandalise or steal anything from the car. In the next stage of the experiment, one window of the BMW car was broken, and again the reactions of passerby’s were recorded. It was observed that this time around most of the people passing by actually stopped to look at the car, and some even tried to vandalise the car. Thus, this particular example helps to explain why people are tempted to vandalize, commit a crime or generally do something wrong, when they think that it is ok for them to do so.

I thought that the ‘broken windows’ theory also helps to explain the increasingly uncontrollable problem of piracy in today’s digital world. One of the reasons why piracy is spreading like wildfire is because ordinary people think that it is ok to indulge in it. To give my own example, I really don’t feel that guilty when I am illegally downloading movies / music online; just because I know that most of my other friends and scores of other people are also doing it. I have noticed that the movie/music industry has already started bringing out various advertisements on piracy, whose main objective I think is to make you feel guilty of indulging in piracy. However, I think that the effectiveness of these advertisements is not enough to make people change their behaviour anytime soon.

Thus, more than the attitude of people, it is the environment that instigates them to do something wrong.