Broken Windows

I was cleaning up my Outlook-inbox at work, when I came across this little blog I wrote about 1.5 years ago. Because I giggled when I reread it, I guess it's still postable. I couldn't publish it back then, because it is a bit critical regarding my job; but that's all changed now. I decided being critical could be a job as well. So here's a little insight in what the study of criminology means in practice. And hopefully I'll be able to do more under the name of 'the Right Trace'.

My favourite colour is purple.
My favourite Indian curry is the chicken Korma.
My favourite criminological theory is the 'broken window theory'.
Now, I don't want to start a whole discussion on 'what is a criminological theory', I've heard enough of that in the last couple of days on the Common Sessions in Rotterdam (presentations by criminology students). You know what I mean: If a window (or door, or picnic-bench) is broken (either destroyed, vandalised, graffiti'd or just kaput), you need to repare it. Otherwise it will 'provoke' people to destroy other things in that neighbourhood. If you leave it unrepaired, it it will lead to more trash, upset neighbours who stop caring about their street and eventually you will end up with one of Rita's Prachtwijken.
I love the theory's practicalness, because I am a practical girl. It offers handles to the ones who are in the field doing something about crime, more than merely discussing it in an academic atmosphere (which was lovely by the way).
What it boils down to, is this: fix it. Now you do not get more practical than that, you would think...

As a practical girl I was reading the daily 'juvenile nuisance' reports last week and I came across the logging of an incident. The police officer received a phonecall from an attentive neighbour who had noticed a car in his street with the window smashed (those of you who paid any attention know what you should do by now). The police officer did a lot of things, but fixing it, was not one of them.
He wrote down why it would be important to tow the car away (in accordance with 'broken windows'). He ran the plate and found out that the car belonged to a junkie. He concluded that this fellow would not (be able to) pay for the towing of the car in order to have it repaired. The police officer decided to leave it as it was.
I was confused, this was wrong on so many levels, I started typing an email to the officer in question straight away. Knowing the impact of the emails that I send when I am, let's say, inspired, I decided to take a look at it again, crossing some words out, rearrange the message and eventually deleting the whole thing. I didn't want to hurt the police officer and get any more complaints in the form of X's behind my name.
I would have been happy to leave it at that, would I not have gone to the previously mentioned Common Sessions, where I realised that I should have just send that email, it's okay to be critical, even if it means upsetting my colleagues.
So thank you for that. My workload just got increased by a tenfold.