Popehat: Jailing people for being homeless is a classic American policy: stupid, brutal, and very expensive.

Jailing people for being homeless is a classic American policy: stupid, brutal, and very expensive.

Now Ken, they aren’t criminalizing homelessness! They’re just criminalizing sleeping in public even under circumstances where’s there no other choice available to you except never sleeping and analogizing a human sleeping to an alcoholic drinking. Perfectly reasonable interpretation of the law.

And of course, leaving aside that any proper reading of Powell would, under Marks, have Justice white's opinion (and not the plurality) be the holding of the court. And his opinion held it was impermissible to punish public intoxication provided you could prove it was involuntary.

And ignores the later majority holding in Driver v. Hinnan (1966), which held that a public intoxication statute could not criminalize public intoxication of someone who was a chronic alcoholic.

"I woke up in a Soho doorway A policeman knew my name He said, "You can go sleep at home tonight If you can get up and walk away""

Not to mention COUNTERPRODUCTIVE

If you consider criminalizing poverty and expanding the power of for profit prison productive, then it was productive as fuck.

So it's just slavery again ... 😑

It’s only slavery if it comes from the Ndongo region of West Central Africa. Otherwise it’s just sparkling race-based internships.

That's CRT, you can't post that, it might be read by a teenager in a Florida or Texas school. *cynicism* Seriously, to be most accurate it is a systematically race-biased and class-based internship. This displays the propagation of systematic racism properly.

The unwritten bias is based on both race and class, with the written bias being based on class, and class being already biased on race. This propagates the class bias based on race. It is all one big self-justifying feedback loop.

Never went away. www.mprnews.org/story/2024/0...

Prisoners in the U.S. are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brandswww.mprnews.org In a sweeping two-year investigation, The Associated Press found goods linked to prisoners wind up in the supply chains of everything from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal fl...

True

Except you are creating an economic bubble with this, one that has a limit and will burst in a major disaster of all related national policy.

Way more expensive than just housing them!

I think that’s the point though. The money comes from the poor people who actually pay taxes, and it goes to the people who run prisons. The fact that it’s more expensive is a good thing from their point of view.

They're not getting the "free" labor if they have to house them off-site.

So classic that O'Henry wrote a story about it in . . . [checks] 1904. www.owleyes.org/text/best-o-...

The Best of O. Henrywww.owleyes.org Read expert analysis on The Best of O. Henry The Cop and the Anthem at Owl Eyes

Careful, there. O.Henry is probably on The List.

Jailing is a means to an end. The end being "be homeless where I don't have to see it."

With the added bonus of funneling tax dollars into the pockets of corrections contractors. Depending on the state, maybe for some workers who can be paid below minimum wage.

“NoBodY waNtS to wOrK aNymOrE.” Problem solved. Oh, late-stage capitalism. What miracle CAN’T you work?

And thanks to the specific carve out for prisoners, $0.24/hour isn't technically slavery! American Manufacturing is coming back, baybee! AAAAWWWWWROOOOO!

Half point, they're not homeless if we can use them for industrial work and to put out fires.

Property Manager: It says here you’ve been arrested. Applicant: Yes, for homelessness. Property Manager: I’m sorry, we can’t rent to people with a conviction.

The cruelty IS the point.

I’m guessing the jails see it as more “free labor” to exploit, so they’re pleased about this. 🤢

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqvY... (Reposted because I didn't realize the first video wasn't the whole number, and I can't find a non-high-school performance of just this number, alas)

Annie: We'd Like to Thank You, Herbert Hooverwww.youtube.com YouTube video by Annie Ensemble - Topic

We have a social welfare state...for police.

Waiting for the first plan for poor houses to be approved by a town council.

The plan is a race to the bottom to scare homeless people out of your town.

*waves* We've got one in town! Lovely four story building, lots of space, but more importantly a lot of services to help get them onto their feet again.

I don’t think that’s what the Supreme Court has in mind when they think of “poor houses”

Precisely. I'm thinking of the models they used in Victorian England. Essentially a way to force people to comply to religious doctrine and remind them of their moral failings since they are poor. Probably less cholera, but who knows with the Chevron ruling.

It’s also one of the factors that brought about the end of the Gilded Age…and the onset of the Great Depression.

Things will be better once we stop letting them build their own horrible camps and start putting them in THE GOVERNMENT’S horrible camps…

Very expensive or very profitable for private prisons? Tomato, tomato.

Almost all prisons and jails are public. Most work in prisons is stuff like laundry or meals in the prison itself. And people will be going to jail not prison, which often have zero work requirements. This is to get people out of sight or drive them out of town.

“Public” is a vague term unless you drill down to all the private subcontractors that profit off the “public” prison industrial complex. Just one data source: www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/publica...

List of major for-profit prison services and companies | Prison Legal News www.prisonlegalnews.org

And yes there is a technical difference between jail and prison but criminalizing homelessness with send people to both.

Puritan “work ethic” is the source of much pain and suffering. The newly made up “Prosperity Gospel” feeds this too. The truth is the USA will ignore any proven solutions that involve giving people something to without a requirement they are shamed for needing help, and made to work for it.

"Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again. “And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?” “They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge. “Both very busy, sir.” “Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

why don't they just buy homes it's not like the median home price in the usa is around $450k or anything

Would you not become complicit in this crime if you evict someone? Or, as the crime is sleeping outside, potentially if you in any way prevent someone from sleeping inside by denying them a lease, mortgage, or job to afford sleeping inside.

It does give them shelter though so uh... Problem solved! No need to think about it more.

Don't the Americans love stupid, brutal and expensive shit?

This country is rotten to the core

Like most countries, just this one is rotten the American way.

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