This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vidantam.

In the early 1980s, a couple of researchers wrote an article in The Atlantic that would

have far-reaching consequences.

The article introduced a new idea about crime and policing.

It was called Broken Windows.

The idea was simple.

A broken window is a sign of a neglected community.

And a neglected community is a place where crime can thrive.

The researchers said if police could fix the small problems, the big ones would disappear.

So the Broken Windows theory was this magical solution that basically everybody could like.

It quickly became seen as a panacea for crime.

Today we explore how ideas sometimes get away from those who invented them.

And then are taken to places that were never intended.

It's a beautiful story and it's a myth.

Our story begins in 1969.

The psychologist Philip Zimbato ran an interesting experiment.

He abandoned two cars on the street, one in a mostly poor crime-ridden section of the

Bronx in New York City and the other in an afloen neighborhood in Palo Alto, California.

Both cars were left without license plates, parked with the hoods up.

With 10 minutes of leaving the car in the Bronx, passers-by began taking things of value.

The car was quickly stripped for parts.

Then, the random destruction began.

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