I once got off a bus in a deserted back street of New York City’s China town at nine o’clock at night, holding a weekend bag, with not a soul insight. But, I was totally at ease.
In many other cities, a street at night with no cars or people, and shuttered shops all around, would feel very uncomfortable. In Manhattan, or at least the Manhattan that I know, this is not the case. It may in parts look sinister after dark, but to people who know New York and its neighbourhoods, it is not. It is not just a great city; it is also a safe city.
This was not always the case. In the 1980s, New York had a reputation for being one of the most crime-ridden cities in the United States. However, in the 1990s, New York took a sudden turn: murders dropped by two-thirds, felonies were cut in half.
The broken windows theory
Why this happened has been the topic of considerable discussion. One widely accepted explanation appears in Malcolm Gladwell's book, “The Tipping Point”, where Gladwell looks at how products or trends suddenly tip from obscurity to being national or international phenomena or, as in the case of New York, from being crime infested to safe.
Galdwell explains that key to New York’s tipping was the implementation of the ‘broken windows’ theory. The thinking behind it ran: if people see a broken window in an empty building, they will feel little guilt in throwing a rock at the building and breaking an additional window. With two broken windows, the pace at which the remaining windows are broken increases dramatically, and the empty building becomes derelict. Like broken windows, dereliction spreads. From the one window, to the rest of the building, to then other buildings. So can start the decline of an entire neighbourhood.
The fix lies in stopping the first transgression, the signal that says that it is okay to break windows or, by extension, engage in other forms of illegal activity. So this is exactly what the New York City administration began addressing: graffiti was scrubbed off subway carriages and people who dodged subway fares were chased down and fined; above ground, littering was policed.
And so started a change in the perception of New Yorkers about what was allowable and what was not.
Quite quickly, people who may have transgressed the law in minor ways stopped, simply because the message was sent that it was not okay to do so. Crime rates went down because people did not allow themselves to slip into criminal acts, spanning from littering to robbery.
Low-cost enforcement
In this tale of transformation lie lessons for cities other than New York, and maybe not just cities but whole societies. The key lies in understanding that minor laws that are comparatively easy to enforce should be rigorously enforced. The cost of doing so is low, but the signal it sends to society can be as substantial as the enforcement of major laws.
This means that small things, such as making cars stop at zebra crossings for pedestrians, enforcing matatu speed limits, or coming down on the thousands of daily instances of petty corruption, become more significant than they immediately appear. They are part of a larger package of changing attitudes that laws should be respected, big and small.
A Kenyan example
Kenya is not new to this approach. As transport minister in 2003, John Michuki made matatus comply with passenger numbers and speed limits, the big stuff, but also went on to require that they are painted in a plain and uniform manner (white with a yellow stripe) and that touts wear uniforms. These comparatively minor requirements – that have seemingly little to do with passenger safety – were, presumably, put in place to enforce a wider culture of compliance among matatu drivers, touts and owners. On their own such rules may seem petty, but in light of larger tipping theories, they can be potentially important levers of behavioral change.
So, the message is: sweat the small stuff when it comes to law enforcement, as it can be pivotal in bringing about the bigger changes that a society seeks. And at a relatively low cost.
But also take on the big stuff
However, important and much over-looked as the small stuff is, it is not sufficient. While New York was busy enforcing small regulations, it also massively expanded its police department, invested substantially more in police training, and gave its cops greater ‘freedom’ in law enforcement. These measures also all contributed to New York’s transformation.
This means that while Kenya’s move to put its ministers into Passats is a smart decision in terms of sending a message to public servants that they are in their positions not to gain prestige and wealth but to serve the public good, this alone is not enough. The Kenyan public still needs to actively scrutinize government activity and prosecute suspected malfeasance. Important as symbolic acts are, they are not enough without accompanied enforcement of the larger rules.
This is well demonstrated in Ethiopia. Our northern neighbour’s version of matatus are all painted plainly and uniformly: white with a simple blue stripe. Mr. Michuki would be impressed by their tidiness. However, while they are made to comply with the small stuff, this is where their compliance stops. They drive dangerously, putting lives at risk. The residents of Addis are unimpressed with their tidy but dangerous matatus. They refer to them simply as: blue devils.
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