Delinquency leads to crime

NVDL: Our environment has an important impact on whether we or our companions became criminals. If the environment is dirty, polluted, already littered, if crime already appears in the area, it is far more likely that more crimes will be committed (see below).

Here it is in simple language: if you care about the environment, the environment cares about you and so on. Once a certain amount of diligence is lost, paradise is lost.

clipped from www.economist.com A PLACE that is covered in graffiti and festooned with rubbish makes people feel uneasy. And with good reason, according to a group of researchers in the Netherlands. Kees Keizer and his colleagues at the University of Groningen deliberately created such settings as a part of a series of experiments designed to discover if signs of vandalism, litter and low-level lawbreaking could change the way people behave. They found that they could, by a lot: doubling the number who are prepared to litter and steal. The writing’s on the wall Dr Kelling’s theory takes its name from the observation that a few broken windows in an empty building quickly lead to more smashed panes, more vandalism and eventually to break-ins. The tendency for people to behave in a particular way can be strengthened or weakened depending on what they observe others to be doing.