Mended Windows, Not Broken Windows: A Du Boisian Analysis of Urban Policing

Abstract

This study draws from W.E.B. Du Bois’ urban sociology in The Philadelphia Negro, Darkwater, and Black Reconstruction in America to offer a conceptual foil to present-day broken windows policing. We suggest that the Chicago School’s ecological model of urban life facilitated a broken windows approach to policing by labeling people and places as disordered but also that a Du Boisian approach—what we call “mended windows”—offers new ways of addressing underlying inequalities that reproduce harm. After drawing out the distinct intellectual trajectories of these two approaches, we turn to two contemporary cases of racialized police violence—Syracuse, NY, and the Antelope Valley, CA—to illustrate the theoretical and methodological significance of a Du Boisian mended windows analysis of urban policing across time and place. We conclude by considering what this approach might have foretold about contemporary movements to defund policing in favor of investing in community vitality.