Power of Context

In “The Power of Context” by Malcolm Gladwell, the author proposes a theory to explain the phenomenon that occurred when the sudden period of intense cleaning and maintenance of crime-infested New York City was able to slash crime rates to astonishing new lows. Another crucial aspect of the complex processes and mechanisms that cause trends to “tip” into mass popularity is what Gladwell terms the Power of Context. If the environment or historical moment in which a trend is introduced is not right, it is not as likely that the tipping point will be attained. To illustrate the power of context, Gladwell takes on the strangely rapid decline in violent crime rates that occurred in the 1990s in New York City.

Although Gladwell acknowledges that a wide variety of complex factors and variables likely played a role in sparking the decline, he argues convincingly that it was a few small but influential changes in the environment of the city that allowed these factors to tip into a major reduction in crime. He cites the fact that a number of New York City agencies began to make decisions based on the Broken Windows theory, which held that minor, unchecked signs of deterioration in a neighborhood or community could, over time, result in major declines in the quality of living.

To reverse these trends, city authorities started focusing on seemingly small goals like painting over graffiti, cracking down on subway toll skippers, and dissuading public acts of degeneracy. Gladwell contends that these changes in the environment allowed the other factors, like the decline in crack cocaine use and the aging of the population, to gradually tip into a major decline in the crime rate in the city.

Gladwell paints a vivid picture of New York City in the 1980s, when its crime rate was “in the grip of one of the worst crime epidemics in its history” (288). The most frightening scene of all, Gladwell describes, was the subway, a site plagued by countless problems ranging from robbery to murder. Muggings and other violent crimes were daily occurrences on the trains, as “New York City averaged well over 2,000 murders and 600,000 serious felonies a year” (287). However, the focus of Gladwell's tale of the New York City subway system directs attention to the more obvious but less serious surroundings, for example, graffiti, panhandlers and fare beaters. Gladwell thoroughly details such “Minor, seemingly insignificant quality-of-life crimes,” (292) because he believes these events are Tipping Points of violent crime, as theorized by criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in their Broken Windows theory, suggesting crime is contagious. Gladwell goes deep into the details about the incident involving Bernie Goetz, declaring the environment is in control of everyone in the train. However, Gladwell downplays the characters of the witnesses riding in the same train; while Goetz and the four youths were under the spell of the graffiti, the other passengers were sitting, not committing violent crimes. Though the crime rate on the subway did increase ...