It makes no sense because it fails to take into account the connection between one broken window left untended and a thousand broken windows. Start studying The Broken Window (Spanish). Broken windows theory is an idea that seeks to explain crime and crime infested areas. The broken windows theory states that visible signs of disorder and misbehavior in an environment encourage further disorder and misbehavior, leading to serious crimes. Broken windows theory, academic theory proposed by James Q. Wilson and George Kelling in 1982 that used broken windows as a metaphor for disorder within neighbourhoods. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. The broken window fallacy is a parable that is sometimes used to explain the problem with the notion that waging war is good for a nation's economy. Their theory links disorder and incivility within a community to subsequent occurrences of serious crime..