“Broken windows” policing targets minor offenses to deter more serious crimes and improve quality of life, just as repairing a broken window signals resolve against further vandalism.

Writing in the Manhattan Institute's City Journal, New York City Police Commissioner Bill Bratton and noted social scientist George Kelling rebut critics of the practice. Those critics were emboldened by the deaths of Eric Garner in New York City and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., at the hands of police. (Mr. Kelling was the co-author of the seminal “broken windows” essay published in The Atlantic magazine in 1982.)

“Broken windows” policing:

• involves witnessing crimes and acting on probable cause, unlike “stop, question, and frisk” tactics “based on reasonable suspicion of possible criminality.”

• was supported by 56 percent of blacks, 61 percent of whites and 64 percent of Hispanics polled in New York City after Mr. Garner's death.

• targets high-crime areas based on data, “not some determination to target minorities.”

• reduces incarceration by keeping minor offenders from committing more serious crimes. It has cut New York City's felony arrests and jail census dramatically.

• deters serious crime. Since New York City's 1994 adoption of “broken windows,” its annual murder rate per 100,000 people has dropped from 26.5 to four.

The critics are wrong. “Broken windows” works. And police should embrace it.

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