The essay “The Power of Context” was quite remarkable to me. I was amazed at how they were able to turn the crime scene around in New York with the Broken Window theory! Having lived in a city of 14million people I have seen the graffiti, the panhandling, and heard stories of the crime. Luckily I haven’t experienced that personally. I lived in Manila, Philippines for 4 years and it amazes me that that kind of law enforcement, working with all the little things, really took that away. I definitely agree that context is truly a means of affecting things whether it be in the message graffiti sends or just the way things are dealt with. It’s hard to say, when I look at the poverty levels and housing situations of a majority of the people there who live in caddy-shacks, that a problem like crime and begging could be fixed when corruption is so prevalent. I’m reminded of the movie “slumdog millionare” on so many levels when reading this story. When a child is raised without parents in the slums of a third world country its hard not to resort to stealing, begging, and higher levels of crime. There is no reason not to. In countries like that, people can’t just be thrown in prison because over the half the country would be in prison due to the difference in classes. There is no where for these children to turn unless someone can help them, either they dig through trash heaps everyday in hopes of survival or find a way to make a living no matter what the cost may be. Some of the higher most respected people that they see are those who are drug and crime lords. This is what they aspire to be, powerful by whatever means available. It’s a very powerful movie that portrays the life of those in the slums of Mumbai and places alike. I have seen the beggars in the streets of the Philippines that carry around babies or are blind one eye, all a scheme, so that they can earn more money. I wish I could say that the Broken Window theory would work there as well but the truth of the matter is that the authority figures there are no better than some of the criminals mulling around the alleys. It’s hard to persuade someone that has no respect for the law and greed for money to suddenly sacrifice their bribes and over privileged abilities to uphold the law for better morals and overall better city. We are innately selfish beings. The City of New York was lucky to find someone with a strong enough will and ambition to clean up the city as he did. I can only hope that these kind of people will arise in places less fortunate so that they too may benefit from their ideals.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4245422.stm