Dave Fridmann

The tolerance zero is a Doctrine aiming at severely punishing the delinquents with the least infringement of the Loi. The tolerance is thus reduced to zero, it does not have no extenuating circumstance there. It was in particular put in practice in the town of New York, where it today is strongly called in question.

Principle

They are the academics James Wilson and Georges Kelling in the American review Atlantic Monthly in 1982 which defined the first this theory under this name.

Their theory is illustrated by the “broken pane”. If a pane of a building is broken and is not immediately replaced, some will be able to deduce from it that the building is given up and in the process of dilapidation. And inevitably all the panes will be in their turn broken, the delinquents considering that does not have any importance.

This theory is based on two postulates:

if the person in charge of an infringement is not condemned immediately, it is encouraged to repeat;
if the persons in charge of infringements are not condemned for each infringement with all the severity which the law authorizes, they gradually will derive from the small offense to the crime.

By accepting that, the only way of preventing the repetition and the climbing of the infringements is to act immediately with each one of them. By condemning the persons in charge immediately, one persuades the latter that any action against the company involves an immediate reaction and the feeling of impunity disappears.

Several countries apply this method for a long time, as in Popular republic of China, where it can lead to the Capital punishment.

The case of the town of New York

The partisans of “tolerance zero” often quote the example the town of New York, whose Maire Rudolph Giuliani started to make it apply in 1994.

For the application in this city, somebody who twice steals a share of pizza pie of continuation for example, made imprisonment. That applies only to the minor delinquency, which poses some problems concerning the equality of the sorrows.

The result, according to the town of New York, after seven years of application is a fall of:

* 65% for the Homicide S;

* 68% for the flights of car;

* 62,5% for the pick-pocketing;

* 62% for the Burgling S;

* 36% for the Rape S;

* and 32% for the other physical aggressions.

The town of New York practices also an important police presence (in a few years, the number of police officers passed from: 30000 with: 40000, for a town of 7,5 million inhabitants). This presence causes cause a drop in the Sentiment of insecurity (because the police force, synonymous with safety is more present) and to allow to more control the populations and the ethnicities which are regarded by the police force as potential delinquents (groups prone to practices at the risks: drug addicts, male prostitutes, SDF, or, which poses definitely more problems of principle, racial groups perceived as at the risk by the police force: Latin-American Afro-Americans, , etc)

The police interventions and their results are controlled also much by the hierarchy. Until one waits of the police force they are results, in other words arrests. To have figures and the Statistical S which results from this, a computing system was created, CompStat . It makes it possible to present the zones of the city while being based on the numbers of complaints, arrests, offenses, of crimes, etc the police chiefs are then summoned to return accounts regularly and to explain their methods cause a drop in criminality in the zones which pose problem. If the persons in charge of the police stations do not regulate the problems as soon as possible, they are thanked.

Responsibility in the fall for criminality

The very important fall of criminality in the town of New York is not due solely to the application of the policy of “tolerance zero”. During the Years 1990, many other étasuniennes big cities knew significant drops, for certain comparable with New York. One can quote in particular Boston, Houston, San Diego or Dallas. However, these cities did not practice tolerance zero, some of them even practiced an opposite policy (reduction of police manpower, dialogs with the citizens, etc). The case of Canada is also interesting, the police and criminal behavior is different and yet criminality also dropped during this period.

It is also to note that criminality had already started to drop in New York in the years 1991 and 1992, that is to say before the installation of the policy of tolerance zero. In their work Freakonomics - has off Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Everything , Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner correlates this fall with the arrival with maturity of the newborns with the legalization of the Avortement; they explain this correlation by the fact that when a child is not wished, it has more risk to rock in criminality. According to them, the fall of criminality is thus “mechanical”.

By taking into account all these factors, tolerance zero was not the method miracle presented during many years. Perhaps it took part in the fall of criminality, but it was not the main cause. During the Années 1990 the rate of Chômage dropped, the standard of living increased because of important Economic growth of the United States, and l'" épidémie" of ace, important factor criminogene, was almost destroyed. These factors doubtless took part much more in the fall of criminality that the practice of tolerance zero.

Perverse effects

Many people criticize this policy of tolerance zero because it involves several perverse effects:

The most visible first and is the increase in the complaints against the police officers, which is of 41% for New York. The cause is that the police officers are pressed by their hierarchy “to make figure”. This pressure generates an aggressive attitude of the police officers when they are addressed to the people whom they control. Their aggressiveness can involve a hostile reaction of the controlled people and a counterpart on behalf of the police force. The reverse is also valid, with least aggressiveness on behalf of the controlled people, the police officers retort in a disproportionate way, whereas the best method is rather to seek to calm the aggressive person.

Second is that, paradoxically, the members of the ethnic minorities see the police force like troublemakers and are afraid when they are made control by the police force (according to a survey carried out in August 2000 in New York, 61% of the whole of probed estimated that the police force made a good work, but 42% of the blacks and 36% of Hispanic said to be afraid when they were approached by a police officer). This fear with respect to the police officers comes owing to the fact that the latter regard them a priori as delinquents, their reaction is thus hostile, that the person is guilty or not.

Third is that the police force considers any person, and mainly groups considered at the risks (see higher), as delinquents or criminals in power. The Presumption of innocence risk thus to disappear. People who do not have strictly anything to reproach themselves can have mesh to leave with the police force.

Application in the world

This policy applied to New York east at the origin of the important promotion of “tolerance zero” in the world. It was exported and adapted with more or less of success abroad. One can quote the the United Kingdom in particular, where they are mainly the young people who are defined as the potentially delinquent group.

The policy of tolerance zero is also applied since many years in China, being able to go in this country until executions after a summary judgment. That however does not stop the violence, which is as in many countries, strongly related to the great poverty.

In France, the prefect of the area PACA issued the “tolerance the zero” on October 29th, 2006 in eight hot areas of Marseilles after the fire of a bus which made a seriously injured.

Critical

Tolerance zero is highly criticized by some which consider that it does not stop of anything the violence, which is not related to the height of the punishment, but rather with lacks in the life and the company. This only repressive policy one of criticisms is in particular formulated against these doctrines. Because she is worried only consequences and not causes of the infringements. It is an only sedentary policy, the sociological aspect of the delinquency is not taken into account.

Moreover, groups considered by the police force as delinquents move because of police pressure which is exerted against them. The drug addicts, they without fixed residence and the prostitutes are rejected towards the suburbs or into zone offset. The delinquency and the violence which accompany them do not disappear, they are simply moved and thus decrease in the statistics of the agglomeration centers.

According to Bernard Harcourt, law professor with the University of Chicago, the theory of tolerance zero does not go, and is criticized today by the police force and the scientific community. He declares in particular in the daily newspaper Humanity :

All that reinforces the exclusion of already marginalized people and is done with the detriment of a fight against true criminality. In addition, there is today a consensus which emerges to denounce this theory of the broken panes which would like that the minor disorders end up causing the major crimes. The disorder does not cause the crime. Both, in fact, have the same causes. This report, which gathers from now on the scientific community, but also more and more of chiefs of police force, is unfortunately not shared yet by the political world.

See too

Police force

Reference

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