Effects Of Criminalization Of Homelessness

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Criminalizing homeless people reveals that it is actually quite inefficient, expensive, and most importantly, it infringes the rights that they are entitled to have. Homelessness is much more than not having a home. Most of the time, homelessness is not having any hope or chance. It is a crisis that continues to impact millions of American people every day. A crisis that gives them no choice but to sit on the streets and try to survive each day with extreme optimism. However, they are being criminally punished for doing harmless actions that they have no choice but to do them. The innocuous action of sitting on the streets and sleeping on the streets is somehow viewed as a criminal act. A number of resources wasted for criminalizing such …show more content…

The government is taking money out of the taxpayers’ pocket to criminalize harmless people. According to UC Berkeley School of Law Policy Advocacy Clinic (2016), the rising amount of anti-homeless laws has been expensive towards taxpayers and it actually produced more complication than help to the American People. This is just one of the resources that the government is wasting towards homelessness in the United States. These kind of resources is wasted on something that does not fix anything regarding homelessness. Criminalizing these kinds of innocuous actions only does more harm than good. It only impedes on assisting them to improve their life and condition. As indicated by the U.S Interagency Council on Homelessness (2009), “[r]ather than helping people to regain housing, obtain employment, or access needed treatment and service, criminalization creates a costly revolving door that circulates individuals experiencing homelessness from the street to the criminal justice system and back.” The Utah Housing and Community Development Division (2013) state that the annual cost towards the hospital visits and jailing for an average homeless person was about $16,670. Meanwhile, providing a homeless person an apartment or any kind of assistance would only cost $11,000. The money that was obtained from those resources should be used to help them with their condition instead of wasting it by putting them in jail for something

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