Broken windows theory may be making a local comeback. The idea, first developed by two academics in the early 1980s and promoted by former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in an attempt to crack down on “quality of life” misdemeanor crimes, came up during a King County Council meeting on Tuesday as a way to explain safety and poverty-related issues surrounding the King County Superior Courthouse entrance on 3rd Avenue.
Broken windows attempts to link environmental conditions to serious criminal behavior. The theory argues that graffiti, loitering, and, you know, broken windows, signals that no one is watching or deterring bad behavior. Since the 1980s, subsequent research and the consequences of broken windows policing—including a successful lawsuit arguing that the NYPD’S stop-and-frisk policy unconstitutionally violated the rights of Black and Hispanic New Yorkers—has challenged the basis of the theory as flawed alongside the misguided policing that resulted from it.
But at a King County Council hearing on Tuesday morning, a local judge and the King County Sheriff used broken windows to describe what they see as a crime—and fear of crime—problem outside the King County Superior Courthouse.
Judge Laura Inveen first invoked “broken windows” after describing a state of “crisis” outside the courthouse. She cited “lewd conduct,” unsafe and unsanitary conditions, drug dealing, and three assaults this year on court employees and jurors. A juror had been assaulted after stepping off the bus in May, another been knocked over after lunch on June 14, and that on June 15, a family law advocate had been “body slammed,” Inveen continued. The judge complained of full garbage cans outside the courthouse, urine stains and feces, and went on to describe the Prefontaine Place, the park outside the courthouse, as an “open air drug market.”
“You have likely heard of the broken window theory,” Inveen said. “Under this academic theory, an ordered and clean environment sends the message that the area is monitored and that criminal behavior is not tolerated.”
“Similarly, an area left in disrepair and in unsanitary conditions sends the signal that no one is paying attention to the area, and criminal behavior has little risk of detection,” Inveen continued. “We are currently in that latter situation.”
King County Sheriff John Urquhart, who testified in a panel after Inveen, agreed with her assessment of broken windows’ contribution to the perceived problem. “I agree 100 percent,” he said. “It’s part of the broken windows theory. It is literally the broken window.”
Judge Jim Rogers, who also testified with Judge Inveen, recommended power-washing the entrance of the courthouse every day and removing the King County Metro benches in front of the entrance where people can loiter.
The King County Superior Court sits at the nexus of several buildings and services that cater to low-income people, the homeless, people seeking addiction treatment, and people in crisis. It’s directly across the street from the Downtown Emergency Service Center, and people seeking shelter beds or food can find the Union Gospel Mission, too, just a block away. People without homes often camp around the area, including under the closed Yesler overpass. The King County jail, which releases people daily, is also around the corner.
But the crime problem described by Inveen may be more imagined than real. The Seattle Police Department’s West Precinct describes the area as relatively safe, with few calls and few assaults. Just 23 arrests were made in the area this year.
It’s also worth noting that the county has been sued over the makeup of its juries. King County jurors—paid $10 dollars a day to take off work and come to court—disproportionately exclude poor and minority participants, plaintiffs alleged. It may be the case that jurors from wealthier, whiter, and more suburban areas may simply not be used to seeing Seattle’s homelessness state of emergency up close.
Nevertheless, Sheriff Urquhart told the King County Council that it was his job to tackle perceived danger in addition to real risk. He proposed putting two officers on duty outside the courthouse to assuage jurors’ and court workers’ fears.
But King County Council member Larry Gossett, the only Black official on the nine-person council, pushed back on the idea that adding additional law enforcement would make things better.
Gossett described an incident last Monday, July 3, in which he was stopped by a security officer near the 3rd Ave entrance. Gossett said that he had dressed casually—sweatpants, UW shirt, and baseball cap—ahead of the holiday, and was waiting for his wife to pick him up.
“He was nice, but he said, ‘You’re loitering, sir, and you have to move on,’ Gossett recalled. “I thought I was hearing something because I’ve waited for her off and on for 24 years at the same spot.”
The officer reportedly told Gossett that a new policy dictated that officers move people away from the courthouse “who are just hanging out.”
“This thing that we have to shoo people away from here without cause is kind of dangerous and it does reinforce racial profiling, because mostly the poor who hang around here are African Americans,” Gossett said. “The tendency, generally, is when we’re trying to get those people away from here, we focus on the people we’re most fearful of.”
“I think it’s crazy, ridiculous, to talk about taking the benches out out front,” Gossett continued. “I only see people who work in the courthouse who regularly use those.”
But while Urquhart suggested additional law enforcement, the Seattle Police Department and Metro Transit captains who testified on Tuesday said law enforcement should be considered a last resort for treating underlying issues of addiction, mental health crises, and homelessness.
The West Precinct’s Captain Mike Teeter added that while someone in crisis yelling or screaming may make jurors feel uncomfortable or scared, there’s nothing illegal about doing so.
“We have no crimes about public disturbance, disturbing the peace,” Teeter said. “We ask, ‘Can we get you some services?’ as my officers do. If they say no, they have the Constitutional right to do so, standing on the street and yelling. There’s nothing from a policing perspective that can be done.”
