摘要:Robert J. Sampson is Chairman of the Department of Sociology and Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University. Stephen W. Raudenbush is Lewis-Sebring Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Chicago. In urban sociology and criminology, few ideas have been more influential than the theory of "broken windows" first explicitly laid out by James Wilson and George Kelling. According to the theory, minor forms of public disorder, if unchecked, lead to a downward spiral of urban decay and crime