Compare methods

	Broken Windows Assessment	Social Disorganization Analysis
Field	Criminology	Criminology
Family	Process / pipeline	Process / pipeline
Year of origin	1982	1942
Originator	James Q. Wilson & George L. Kelling	Clifford R. Shaw & Henry D. McKay
Type	Observational disorder measurement tied to a crime theory	Ecological theory and analysis of neighborhood structural sources of crime
Seminal source	Wilson, J. Q., & Kelling, G. L. (1982). Broken windows: The police and neighborhood safety. The Atlantic Monthly, 249(3), 29–38.	Sampson, R. J., & Groves, W. B. (1989). Community structure and crime: Testing social-disorganization theory. American Journal of Sociology, 94(4), 774–802.
Aliases	Broken Windows Disorder Audit, Physical Disorder Assessment, Systematic Social Observation of Disorder, Neighborhood Disorder Audit	Social Disorganization Theory, Shaw and McKay Model, Neighborhood Social Disorganization Analysis, Community Structure and Crime Analysis
Related	4	4
Summary	Broken windows assessment is the systematic measurement of physical and social disorder — graffiti, litter, broken windows, public drinking, loitering — tied to the hypothesis that visible disorder signals that no one is in control and thereby invites further crime. Stated by Wilson and Kelling in 1982 and put on a rigorous empirical footing by Sampson and Raudenbush's systematic social observation, it turns the metaphor of an unrepaired broken window into a quantified, reliable neighborhood scale.	Social disorganization analysis explains why crime concentrates in some neighborhoods regardless of who lives there, tracing it to community structural conditions rather than individual pathology. Building on Shaw and McKay's classic Chicago studies, it argues that poverty, residential instability, and ethnic heterogeneity undermine a neighborhood's capacity for informal social control, which in turn raises crime and delinquency — a chain that Sampson and Groves later tested empirically with survey-based measures of community social ties.