Maya- Incarceration of the Homeless

The Criminalization of the Homeless
     
             

Action: 
Despite community efforts to help the homeless, the reality is that the amount of homelessness and the incarceration of the homeless in the United States, (and particularly in LA) is through the roof. Given the United States’ claims that everyone is entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, one would assume that the country has a goal to eradicate homelessness. However, it seems as though the real goal is actually to evict the homeless from the communities that they reside in. There are many organizations, institutions, and individuals who are trying their best to help those who are homeless. Nevertheless, there are also many who are trying to place these individuals in jails and prisons to penalize them for “breaking the law” such as trespassing and loitering. With that being said, there is a possibility for most, if not all, homeless individuals to receive the care and resources that they need; in order for this to happen though, the policies that prevent these organizations from providing care and the homeless from bettering themselves need to be changed or eliminated entirely.

Research: 

“In terms of repeat offending, those who are homeless upon entering prison have a higher reconviction rate within one year of being released (Prison Reform Trust, 2012)” (as cited by Cooper, 2017).

“Accordingly, uniformly denying housing to all applicants with recent criminal or eviction records will have a disparate impact on low-income African Americans above and beyond the considerable and well-documented racial discrimination they face in the housing market (US Dep. Hous. Urban Dev. 2000)” (as cited by Desmond & Bell, 2015).

"Current anti-homeless ordinances seek to criminalize the basic human life-sustaining conduct of homeless people and in turn, limit their accessibility to public spaces¹⁹…The attribution of the conduct to homeless people, however, has made the acts—sitting, eating, or sleeping in public spaces—punishable²⁰. By punishing these acts, local authorities are controlling public spaces much like the local authorities that enforced historical exclusion laws did” (as cited by Ortiz, Dick, and Rankin, 2015).

“Although the criminal justice system is traditionally used to punish dangerous and predatory criminals, it can also be used to control the behavior of certain groups of people, including those experiencing homelessness. Efforts to use policing activities to target homeless people stem from centuries-old vagrancy laws used to manage or displace poor and socially detached individuals” (as cited by Aykanian& Lee, 2016).

"Some states, including Rhode Island and Illinois, have created a Homeless Bill of Rights to protect homeless people from criminalization and discrimination in access to housing, social services, and voting (Fortino, 2013)” (as cited by Aykanian& Lee, 2016).

“Portland’s services and facilities available to the homeless, as well as the population’s long history of advocacy would lead visitors and even long-time residents to believe that Portland’s encouragement to accept different walks of life, has indeed, extended to the very poor (Redden 2014)” (as cited by Edelen, 2017).

“The city (Portland) has day services that provide showers, meals, laundry services, and even healthcare on a first come-first serve basis, as well as drop-in centers that offer different groups a place to seek safety, meet their basic needs, and help introduce them into the system of public assistance” (Edelen, 2017; ).

“Dozens of mental health agencies and medical service centers exist to aid the homeless, some specifically targeted towards youth, or the LGBTQ population. Legal assistance, food access programs, recovery services are offered by nonprofit and city-funded agencies” (Edelen, 2017).

Personal Reasoning:
I find it very sad to see so many homeless individuals in the community on a daily basis. It is even more unfortunate to see them being criminalized. Many of them have mental health issues; so instead of being incarcerated, they should be given the resources that they need to survive. Homelessness is an issue that can affect anyone, especially here in LA where rent and other necessities are so expensive. There are so many factors that cause homelessness that more people need to be aware of,  such as gentrification, drug abuse, and employment issues. Therefore, the solution to the issue should not be to put the homeless in jail, but rather to tackle the systemic issues that are causing homelessness. Overall, they should be treated as human beings instead of detriments to society. 

Community Member Thoughts:

Caitlin Spencer

"The incarceration of the homeless is an unjust practice because the homeless usually aren't necessarily breaking any major felony laws that would require them to be incarcerated. I think there's just such a homeless problem, especially in Los Angeles and in Southern California that t's out of control and the solution is to incarcerate them which is wrong because a lot of these people are mentally ill or past veterans, or people who are just not financially stable because it is out  of their control and aren't able to access resources to get jobs or to get funding to get back on their feet in order to not be homeless and the system really shouldn't be incarcerating them. We already have so many overcrowded jails that we don't need to be incarcerating innocent people and in order to actually fix a problem you have to acknowledge it, and by doing this we're not really acknowledging the problem of homelessness in LA and in America in general."

Naim Muhammad

"I think incarcerating the homeless is  something that's a touchy subject because on one hand, of course, these are people who are put in a situation where they can't help themselves and of course they're going to try to do what they need to do to survive so, what are you going to arrest someone for just trying to live and find some place to stay for the night, or trying to get some food or just doing something as harmless as dumpster diving? or just things that won't necessarily hurt the community but there's still consequences to face. On the other hand, you still have the homeless people who don't really know how to act or might be mentally distraught and might do things that disturb the public or just aren't okay in general. But I think at the end of the day they should just be treated as normal people, normal human beings, because that's what they are."

Sophia Martinez

"It's so unfair for homeless individuals to be incarcerated, especially because most of them are mentally ill, so they should be getting hospitalized or housed instead. Most of the time, they are only acting out because they have been suppressed of their bodily needs and they probably have not been taught how to deal with certain situations. Homelessness is a situation that nobody should ever have to experience. Even as community members, we should actually acknowledge them when they try to talk to us, even if they are only trying to ask for something. Just a conversation alone can make a difference, but if we have money we should be willing to give them something. Some of them go days without eating, so buying a homeless person a meal can be very helpful for them.

Mandeep Walia

"I think it's really sad, especially in places where they have spikes on areas where they don't want them to sleep because it's like damn, you're really punishing people for being homeless, you know? Like, I think it sucks and I think that if you can invest money towards that kind of reconstruction, you can invest it towards helping them instead. And I do feel like a lot of homeless people commit crimes on purpose because they know they'll have somewhere to sleep at night or have food for the day. But it costs a lot of money to house prisoners, so it's like, the government is just wasting more money, like that money can really go towards something more productive that can actually help them."

References:

Aykanian, A., & Lee, W. (2016). Social work’s role in ending the criminalization of homelessness: Opportunities for Action. Social Work, 61(2), 183-185. doi:10.1093/sw/sww011

Califf, C. (2015) Getting kicked when you are down: The criminal law and the chronically homeless in the United States. Washington and Lee University’s Poverty Research Seminar. Retrieved from https://repository.wlu.edu/bitstream/handle/11021/32400/RG38_Califf_Poverty_2015.pdf?sequence=1

Cooper, Vickie (2017). No fixed abode: The continuum of policing and incarcerating the homeless. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 11(1) pp. 29–38.

Desmond, M., & Bell, M. (2015). Housing, Poverty, and the Law. Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 11(1), 15-35. doi:10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-120814-121623

Edelen, K. (2017). The Emergence of Portland’s ‘Unique’ Homelessness: Does the City’s Pattern of Compassion Suggest a New Perspective on Poverty? doi:10.15760/honors.428

Ortiz, J., Dick, M., & Rankin, S. (2015). The Wrong Side of History: A Comparison of Modern and Historical Criminalization Laws. SSRN Electronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.2602533

Sabatier, P.A. (1988). An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein. Division of Environmental Studies, University of California, Davis, Davis, California 95616