JANUARY 18 — When I read about the public urination cases in Singapore’s MRT stations (three in about a week!), the one thing that immediately came to mind from my university days was the broken windows theory.
TLDR: This theory states that visible signs of neglect or defiance or just bad behaviour within an environment can and will promote further anti-social and even criminal behaviour.
The idea is that if a window in a building is broken and left unrepaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares, leading to more windows being broken, and eventually, more serious crimes.
I recall reading a story about former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani telling his team about a burnt car in a back alley somewhere on whatever street but he would not tell them where.
They had to find and deal with it because the more abandoned cars there are in a city, the more such cars will appear over time.
We can see this theory in operation in any office where people slack off without reprimand, contributing to an overall culture of inefficiency, delays, etc.
You could also argue that Malaysia’s severe problem with traffic accidents caused by lorries has a similar basis i.e. so many lorry operators see other lorries and operators going around with minimum or zero checks, maintenance, driver-vetting, etc such that nobody’s really motivated to fix any problems, until dangerous lorries become endemic.
With the Singapore MRT urinating cases, I’m sure I’m not the only one surprised at the fact that these incidents could happen at all.
The irony is you almost never hear of such things happening in Malaysian train stations but now it’s happened three times in a place like Singapore where — as the whole world knows — community culture and standards of rigorous cleanliness and efficiency are matters of national pride.
Interestingly, when I was in Singapore’s Chinatown in December last year I also noticed a lot of trash lying around; beer bottles randomly placed, messy tables at restaurants which spilled out onto the sidewalk, etc.
So perhaps, in line with the broken windows theory, it’s not surprising that the first public urination case happened at Outram Park (a stone’s throw away from Chinatown).
On the other hand, other places I visited in Singapore like Clarke Quay, Orchard Road and, of course, Marina Bay Sands were spotless.
I hope the Singapore authorities don’t make the mistake of closely monitoring only these high-profile places and ignoring the less popular stations.
But moving on from Singapore’s public urination cases, what about our own country?
How many broken windows in our society remain unrepaired and unfixed?
* This is the personal opinion of the columnist.
