As cities step up their enforcement efforts in the wake of a Supreme Court ruling, they should consider both the financial costs and the public safety ramifications of treating homelessness as a crime.
First, the data: Criminalizing homelessness is bad financially and bad for public safety. Homelessness and incarceration have long been linked, as many people shuttle between jails, prisons, emergency rooms and the streets. This cycle occurs at the front end and the back end. Homeless individuals are more likely to contact the criminal/legal system — especially as police enforce low-level “survival” crimes such as trespassing, sleeping in public or loitering — and formerly incarcerated people are nearly 10 times more likely to experience homelessness.
This cycle undercuts safety in multiple ways. The collateral consequences of even short-term jailing — such as loss of employment, separation from families, and fines and fees — increase the likelihood of future arrest while exposing arrested individuals to health risks and unsanitary conditions associated with jails. And policies that divert police to enforce low-level infractions, such as collections of fines and fees, lead tolower clearance rates for violent crime.
Criminalization policies also bear a significant financial cost. The cyclical churn between homelessness, shelter and incarceration is estimated to cost taxpayers $83,000 per individual annually — far more than providing treatment and housing. A study of Seminole County, Fla., found that the annual cost of repeatedly arresting 33 frequently homeless people is roughly $171,225 per person. In New York City, the daily cost for supportive housing is $48 per person, compared to $1,414 for incarceration and $3,609 for hospitalization.
Making homelessless illegal will obviously result in fewer homeless people. They’ll all pick themselves up by the bootstraps, walk into the nearest fast food restaurant, and ask the manager for a job. That’s obviously how it works these days, clearly.
What kind of person sees a law that makes it illegal to be poor and thinks it’s going to solve some problem lol.
Anybody who is a cop cannot be considered good because they are part of a system that doesn’t do anything useful to help individuals nor society, even if they wanted to they could not for very long (at least whilst still being a cop).
This extends beyond those who are ‘officially’ cops too, there are many people who act as cops either in a professional or non-professional settings.
The whole idea of cops must end and we must all kill the cops in our heads if society or we are ever going to progress and have a good and just world.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Austin seems to have the right approach given no public-facing nuisance. Basically, don’t run out into the road, and don’t shit in public, and in return, I’m left alone. It is way less expensive to let an invisible problem remain invisible than to address it.
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Making homelessless illegal will obviously result in fewer homeless people. They’ll all pick themselves up by the bootstraps, walk into the nearest fast food restaurant, and ask the manager for a job. That’s obviously how it works these days, clearly.
What kind of person sees a law that makes it illegal to be poor and thinks it’s going to solve some problem lol.
Cruelty was always the point.
More crime? Great! Make more money for the cops (overtime) and the private prisons. Gotta keep OCP in business!
Yeah, fuck cops and the whole idea of punitive ‘justice’ honestly.
Realistically speaking, there are some good ones. Practically speaking, if you aren’t acting as if they’re all bad, you’re a fool.
Agreed on punitive justice though.
The only ‘good’ cops are ex-cops.
Anybody who is a cop cannot be considered good because they are part of a system that doesn’t do anything useful to help individuals nor society, even if they wanted to they could not for very long (at least whilst still being a cop).
This extends beyond those who are ‘officially’ cops too, there are many people who act as cops either in a professional or non-professional settings.
The whole idea of cops must end and we must all kill the cops in our heads if society or we are ever going to progress and have a good and just world.
Shocked_pikachu.exe
I was going to be sarcastic but, no.
When people don’t have anything else to live for in a system that doesn’t respect them then why should they play by the ‘rules’?
yeah you’re making something illegal…?
if my existence is illegal fuck it
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Austin seems to have the right approach given no public-facing nuisance. Basically, don’t run out into the road, and don’t shit in public, and in return, I’m left alone. It is way less expensive to let an invisible problem remain invisible than to address it.