City of St. George, Utah :: Broken Windows and Personal Responsibility

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175 East 200 North

St. George, UT 84770

(435) 627-4000

March 21, 2010

Police Department 200 East 265 North St. George, UT 84770 (435) 634-5000
Animal Control 605 East Skyline Dr. St. George, UT 84770 (435) 634-5829
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Broken Windows and Personal Responsibility

Many years ago I responded on a call of kids in an abandoned house who were breaking windows and climbing on the roof. When I got there, we corralled the little darlings and asked them why they were doing what they were doing. They said that the house had been that way for a long time and they thought no one cared about it. A perfect example of "The Broken Window" theory as it relates to crime: If the broken windows in a building are not fixed, people will think no one cares and more windows will be broken. Unattended disorderly behavior leads to more serious crime and disorder. This is why the little things have to be taken care of. They get bigger.

A home invasion robbery several years ago led to talk among the residents of the neighborhood. Many had seen the suspects driving slowly through the area several times in the preceding weeks and recognized them as suspicious. There were no calls made, no notes taken. The suspects have never been found.
A bad crash where 2 cars were towed and all 4 people were taken to the hospital. Conflicting statements about the color of the light, many witnesses, but no one remained to relate the vital information they saw, the information that would make all the difference.

Two incidents from our Mobile Watch members give us examples of what we can do. Many of you may remember the rash of car windows that were shot out over a period of several weeks. A report came in from a lady who got a possible license plate of a white car leaving the scene of a shattered window. One of the numbers was reported to be a "2". The plate was not on record. One of our Mobile Watch members recognized the description as familiar and went to his notebook. 10 days prior he had written down the plate of two boys in a white car that he saw in his neighborhood. They ran a stop sign and were not from the area. He called dispatch and told them to run the plate with a "7" rather than the "2". We were able to give out a description of the car and the plate, an officer stopped it a short time later and these boys confessed to all the shattered windows. Another Mobile Watch member called in a plate of a vehicle stopped and running in front of a home that was unoccupied. An officer stopped the car several blocks away and found that the 4 kids in the car had burglarized the home, stealing a DVD player.

Now it comes down to YOU.

Get involved with Neighborhood Watch and Mobile Watch.

Get involved with your neighbors. Get to know them, when they are home, when they are gone.

Watch out for each other, take care of each other.

Write things down.

It's your neighborhood. It won't get done unless you do it. You CAN make the difference, if you will.

Craig Harding
Public Information Officer
St. George Police Department

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