3 ms·

Where I live, a lot of homeless people go to jail for the crime of being... homeless (its usually a loitering charge I think). Then they get a charge for it, wh

Where I live, a lot of homeless people go to jail for the crime of being... homeless (its usually a loitering charge I think). Then they get a charge for it, which, they’re obviously not going to pay. This might happen to a person 10-100 times a year. Who is this serving? (The obvious answer is to follow the money, but a big part of the problem is the WASPy yuppies that want the homeless people out of sight but will raise a fuss if anyone tries to build affordable housing.) In the US, everyone thats part of administering our inhumane criminal justice system should be deeply ashamed of their job. Corruption like this is just the tip of the iceberg.

jdhdu2ndj 7y ago
This is purely anecdotal but it seems like this serves the neighborhood mostly because it discourages the homeless (I believe the official term is actually transients) from staying in the area they were occupying. Speaking to California, this sort of policy is popular with home owners because the homeless ruin neighborhoods (not a judgement, just an observation) and so in areas with especially vocal home owners (tenants complain too but less so overall) there is a certain willingness to look the other way as long as the problem is solved. Obviously this applies primarily to neighborhoods with a politically significant base of home owners since tenants tend to care much less about the quality of the area (but of course the same statistics could be explained as observations about regions which offer services and money to the homeless since suburbs and retirement communities typically lack the same public services as downtown SF, Santa Monica beach, or SD tourist zones).
duelingjello 7y ago
For-profit prisons, corporations who enjoy legal slave labor (see also: 13th amendment loophole) and their politician cronies. The US has the highest per-capita incarceration rate on the planet except Seychelles.

jdhdu2ndj 7y ago

This is purely anecdotal but it seems like this serves the neighborhood mostly because it discourages the homeless (I believe the official term is actually transients) from staying in the area they were occupying. Speaking to California, this sort of policy is popular with home owners because the homeless ruin neighborhoods (not a judgement, just an observation) and so in areas with especially vocal home owners (tenants complain too but less so overall) there is a certain willingness to look the other way as long as the problem is solved. Obviously this applies primarily to neighborhoods with a politically significant base of home owners since tenants tend to care much less about the quality of the area (but of course the same statistics could be explained as observations about regions which offer services and money to the homeless since suburbs and retirement communities typically lack the same public services as downtown SF, Santa Monica beach, or SD tourist zones).

duelingjello 7y ago

For-profit prisons, corporations who enjoy legal slave labor (see also: 13th amendment loophole) and their politician cronies. The US has the highest per-capita incarceration rate on the planet except Seychelles.