On Social Norms

Having grown up in the rural United States, moving to Washington DC was a very startling experience for me. Everything from crowded streets to bustling trains to tall skyscrapers made me feel alienated and out of my element. Perhaps the strangest realization of moving to the big city was being forced to expand my social tolerances. Everything I had known growing up was no longer the norm in this city; superficial things like hair color and clothing style, but also more important things as well. Notably, the behaviors people engage in in public which, in other societies, would bring upon social shame, seemed very permissible here in the city. This forced me to reevaluate why I felt so uncomfortable seeing people undertaking actions which, to me, would have been impermissible prior to living here. 

A few examples: In the city, it's not uncommon to see people dancing extravagantly while waiting for the train, often to loud music and for money. It's a daily experience to listen to someone blasting music from their speakerphone while on a crowded train as well. It is also not uncommon to see people barely dressed, shirtless, or engaging openly in petty crime. I have seen joints smoked on the train and people aggressively approach strangers on the street. I’ve seen thousands of protesters decrying businesses full of strangers they don't know, and generally engaging in antagonistic behavior towards their own community. To most of America, these behaviors would be extremely unseemly and make people unfamiliar with them quite nervous. However, the people who live here seem unbothered. In asking myself why these behaviors made me so uncomfortable, I came to the realization that most, if not all, of these behaviors break established social norms for most of polite society. While not being strictly illegal, these behaviors make most of us uneasy because if we ourselves had engaged in them, we would be ostracized from our own communities. 

Social norms are extremely important. They are the informal way that humans organize specific behaviors into categories of what's acceptable and unacceptable. It would be inappropriate to criminalize many things, but our social tolerances create a culture in which everyone feels comfortable and, most importantly, knows what behaviors to expect from their fellow citizen. By knowing what behaviors to reasonably expect from strangers, friends, and your own family, one can very easily identify people who either do not fit in, or exhibit ill-will towards their own community. The threat of social shame is enough to keep most people in line. This means that people will typically dress appropriately, not talk to strangers in an inappropriate way, not say things that are combative or rude, and will generally seek to be pleasant members of their community. When we view people breaking these inherent rules, it begs a very important question: if you are willing to break these social rules, what other rules are you also willing to break? This implied question is asked by all people when they see somebody flagrantly violating social codes of conduct. 

Let's imagine a young woman walking home at night. Our social code of conduct would forbid any stranger from walking within, say, 10 feet of a stranger that they were not familiar with. What would this young woman think if a stranger were to approach her on this walk and get much closer than socially acceptable? Her immediate thought may be “if this person is willing to get so close to me, what else are they willing to do?” When I see a young man on the train smoking weed in a packed train car that has families, children, and other people commuting to work, it makes me wonder what other social norms they are willing to break. Many times, that willingness to break social norms translates directly to breaking laws.

The broken windows theory is a theory put forward in 1982 that contends that major crime often follows petty crime. In other words, those who are committing petty crime, such as hopping the gate at the metro, smoking weed in public, or, as the theory states, breaking windows, are often the same people who are committing major crime. By not enforcing petty crime, it allows those willing to break social contracts to go further and break major social or legal laws.

 The data behind this theory is shocking: a Swedish 2014 study that followed recidivism rates of violent offenders found that approximately half of violent crime convictions were committed by people who already had three or more violent crime convictions. In other words, permanently locking up violent offenders who have a history of at least three offenses would reduce violent crime by 50%. Locking up offenders who have two violent crime convictions would raise that number even further.

Some other sobering statistics: 73% of federal offenders who are sentenced in the United States have been convicted of a prior offense, including violent and petty crimes. In fact, the average number of previous convictions, not just arrests, was 6.1 among offenders with a criminal history. A third of all shoplifting arrests in New York City in 2023 were relegated to only 327 people. Collectively, they were arrested and rearrested more than 6000 times. In 2023, the NYPD made over 13,600 arrests just on the subway system alone. Of those arrests 124 people were arrested five times or more simply in the subway system. Combined these 124 people have been arrested over 7,500 times in their lifetimes, an average of more than 60 arrests per person. In Washington DC, as few as 500 people commit over 70% of the district's gun crime.

So why did we begin this article by talking about social norms? It is, of course, the vast minority of people who are willing to break social norms. It is not many people who are willing to sing and dance in public, act rude to strangers, play music out loud, hop the gate at the train, commit petty theft, or smoke weed in public. It is very reasonable to assume that the same people who are not bound by the legal constraints placed upon them are also not bound by the societal constraints based upon them. The same group of people who are willing to commit larceny, gun violence, or other violent offenses are the same people who are unconstrained by social norms. In other words, it is the social deviants who also become legal deviants. If we return to broken windows theory, we can see that by enforcing petty crime, we can stop major crime. It must be understood, then, that by also enforcing societal norms, we can in turn enforce legal norms. By making it unacceptable to engage in societally deviant behaviors, we can rein in more serious behaviors that threaten our society.

According to the National Institute of justice, the chance of being caught is a much stronger deterrent than the severity of the punishment of being caught. In other words, a high arrest rate is a stronger deterrent to crime than, say, the death penalty. By employing this strategy early, society can stop the very few individuals who will go on to wreak havoc in our communities by addressing their behavior earlier rather than later.

It is not good enough to see somebody breaking social norms and simply say “I am letting that person live the way they want to. It doesn’t affect me.” Unfortunately, this behavior most certainly does affect everyone, and we all have a responsibility to put them in their place. Tolerating small breaches of the social contract directly correlates to toleration of major breaches of the social contract, of which we all suffer.