Otterblog

Back in Rudy Giuliani’s heyday as mayor of New York and before 9/11, his police officials adopted what became known as the “broken window” approach to fighting crime. Essentially, that meant the cops went after what seemed to be minor infractions, i.e. broken windows, as a way of drawing a line in the sand. They realized that the broken windows were the warning signs of bigger breakdowns. The theory—which has been adopted by police forces everywhere—went that if you get out ahead of major crime and not tolerate the little minor offenses, you create a more civil society with less crime down the road.

So what does that have to do with journalism? A lot, it turns out. We adopt that idea with our approach to the state’s public records and open meetings laws. Two stories from this past weekend illustrate that point. The first looked at a potentially improper vote by the local board of elections to name a new director. The second was about police policy on chases.

Both these articles involved the Journal pushing for access—to meetings or to records about policies. Public officials often don’t want to tell the public what they are doing. I don’t think it is that they feel they are hiding anything as much as they feel they know best and can parcel out information as they see fit. Our view is that democracy is messy and citizens ought to know what their governments are doing and how they are doing it. Police officials asked us not to publish chase guidelines, because they said it might give criminals a leg up in avoiding arrest if they know police won’t chase them in certain circumstances. It’s hard to imagine a dangerous criminal doing that calculus when an officer pulls him over.

Our quest for open meetings and public records often revolves around what are considered minor points—chase policies, a vote for the director of elections that won’t change even if it’s taken again. But they are the broken windows in our system of checks and balances. When government closes up on the little things, it isn’t long until they are closed up on the big things.