lonecoyote
Brown Belt
- Joined
- May 13, 2004
- Messages
- 413
- Reaction score
- 10
Could we become safer by making our surroundings look nicer? Today some of my properties got tagged with that chicken scratch looking gang grafitti. An apartment, fence, couple of storage sheds. Real gangsters? No, probably kids. But I remember my criminal justice professor lecturing about "broken windows theory" If a neighborhood is run down, broken windows, grafitti, cars on blocks, weeds, abandoned buildings, there will be more crime. Clean these places up and statistically, crime, even the murder rate drops. My 75 year old mom was over so she, in her getaround joystick electric wheelchair, came out to help me paint. We had a blast. When she got tired she had more fun supervising. We even painted the neighbors fence. I had to stop her from painting the dumpster. It all looks better and, I have to admit, safer. Do you keep the place you live up pretty well? What do you think of this idea? Thanks in advance for any replies.