These days few city officials are willing to speak up for enforcing the law. So we’re glad to see Police Commissioner Bill Bratton’s reaction to our front-page story last week about the return of squeegee men.
Post reporters identified three men who have been aggressively approaching motorists to clean their windshields for pay, and spoke with several New Yorkers who said they’ve seen others at various locations.
“Those will be taken care of very, very quickly,” Bratton vowed Friday, even while insisting the city is “not being overrun” with the one-time symbol of urban decay.
Which is precisely the point of the broken-window policing Bratton adopted during his first stint as commissioner.
In a 1982 article in the Atlantic, George Kelling and James Q. Wilson argued that “one broken window is a symbol that nobody cares.”
Left unfixed, it invites more broken windows, and ultimately more of the disorderly behavior that breaks down a neighborhood.
Bratton understands that the disappearance of the squeegee men was the first visible symbol the city was taking back its streets.
The city goes after squeegee men for largely the same reason it goes after people illegally selling loosies, or individual cigarettes. Not only are they stealing business from shop owners who pay the high taxes, turning a blind eye invites other illegal behavior.
So we don’t get the criticism of Bratton for enforcing the city laws.
The whole point of broken windows policing is to address a problem when it’s small and more easily handled rather than wait for it to grow into something worse.