You are right. Nothing in the report points to the demographic being blamed in the majority of comments.

It could be a rich drug dealer that stabbed this tech exec.

The most compelling one to me is that the cities that applied this theory and the ones that didn’t saw similar decrease in crime suggesting an overall downward trend that couldn’t be attributed to this theory. That’s basically an A/B test at scale that fails to find anything.

Also:

> Baltimore criminologist Ralph B. Taylor argues in his book that fixing windows is only a partial and short-term solution. His data supports a materialist view: changes in levels of physical decay, superficial social disorder, and racial composition do not lead to higher crime, but economic decline does. He contends that the example shows that real, long-term reductions in crime require that urban politicians, businesses, and community leaders work together to improve the economic fortunes of residents in high-crime areas.

That sounds like the theory has cause and effect reversed and treating the effect does not actually address the underlying cause. If your wood beam is rotting, a fresh coat of paint can help but at some point it will collapse.

> In the winter 2006 edition of the University of Chicago Law Review, Bernard Harcourt and Jens Ludwig looked at the later Department of Housing and Urban Development program that rehoused inner-city project tenants in New York into more-orderly neighborhoods.[25] The broken windows theory would suggest that these tenants would commit less crime once moved because of the more stable conditions on the streets. However, Harcourt and Ludwig found that the tenants continued to commit crime at the same rate.

Oh look, another controlled A/B experiment that fails to validate anything.

> In his 2012 book Uncontrolled: The Surprising Payoff of Trial-and-Error for Business, Politics, and Society, Jim Manzi writes that of the randomized field trials conducted in criminology, only nuisance abatement per broken windows theory has been successfully replicated

So the only thing we can link it to is nuisance calls. All that work and hassling for a super minor win.

It’s impossible to scientifically prove something but there’s enough holes to indicate that this theory provides an exceedingly poor model for crime. It’s also easy to consider a hypothetical scenario where one person or a small group of people steals all the money in the neighborhood such that everyone is poor and can barely feed themselves, if that. The poor now need to steal and commit crimes to feed themselves and their families and cause disorder by using drugs too try to escape their situation / self-medicate. Would broken windows policing actually accomplish anything when the root cause is that the money was stolen from the area?

It's a short jump to actually stabbing someone.

This wasn't some kind of hitman assassination.

Just saying. It’s not clear to me the kind of personality that uses the threat of a weapon but it’s not going to be your average thief / shoplifter. I’m not saying it’s a hit man assassination but it could be a gang member (violence is escalated there) or a gang initiation (severe violence is a hallmark). My coworker got mugged in Austin and beaten up extremely bad. I believe the police found the people and it was a gang initiation.

A shoplifter ideally wants to snatch and go. They are in the business of fleeing, partially because they know they won't be confronted. The most likely outcome is that they have someone shout at them or maybe get pushed.

The mugger is not this situation. The mugger has to give someone a reason to comply - that means a threat of violence. The mugger doesn't want to use that threat (they want the stuff) but they need the threat and need to be perceived as serious. Often muggers are new to criminality so they are jumpy, irrational and likely to accidentally apply violence.

Among concealed carriers, one of the hot topics is the situation of an armed mugging. While the mugger doesn't want to harm you, the risk of accidental harm is very real and muggings "fail" and end up as stabbings/shootings all the time. No small amount of time is wasted discussing how concealed carriers should respond to this threat - and I'll let you youtube your own security footage of this happening.

The gang situation is an unfortunate one. I'm sorry your coworker had that happen to them, and it's been a growing issue in Austin.

Anyway, I was trying to show that the broken windows theory is flawed. The broken windows theory suggests that if you stop shoplifting and other trivial crimes it’ll also prevent more violent crimes. That’s unlikely to be the case and the research done so far has not found any supporting evidence for this theory.

You are incorrect. Research is favorable with caveats:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/002242781557657...

You may be conflating it with a VERY misreported meta analysis, the 2019 Daniel T O'Brien et al. which found BWT theory does not impact *mental health* of a neighborhood. He also normalized for SES which BWT is probably a direct predictor of (basically social funding).

> The mugger was not using a weapon.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/251914/number-of-robberi...

If you get mugged, that mugger almost certainly has a weapon. That you saw the exception does not alter the stats.

You are assuming there is no motive for someone in his circle or that he personally knows to commit this kind of crime.

Remember that Bob worked at one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world.

But yes, it is absolutely the most likely occurrence that an obviously wealthy exec, an older man, was an easy mark for a random mugging gone wrong at the wee hours than some crypto bro plotted an assassination.

"Mugging gone wrong, someone got stabbed" is a very, very common situation. Also note that he lived to receive initial aid and perished on the way to the hospital - it's not like he was shot and stuffed in a car trunk.

Case closed, mugging. Occam's razor.