In 1993, New York City began implementing the quality-of-life initiative, an order-maintenance policing strategy targeting minor misdemeanor offenses like turnstile jumping, aggressive panhandling, and public drinking. The policing initiative is premised on the broken windows theory of deterrence, namely the hypothesis that minor physical and social disorder, if left unattended in a neighborhood, causes serious crime. New York City's new policing strategy has met with overwhelming support in the press and among public officials, policymakers, sociologists, criminologists and political scientists. The media describe the" famous" 1 Broken Windows essay2 as" the bible of policing" and" the blueprint for community policing."'3 Order-maintenance policing has been called the" Holy Grail of the'90s.''4" There is little dispute that the theory works," says the ABA Journal. 5 It has sparked" a revolution in American policing," according to the Christian Science Monitor, in an article captioned" One Man's Theory Is Cutting Crime in Urban Streets."'6