A homeless man in Indianapolis is suing because police chased him away from Monument Circle:
It's not clear whether the action was part of a recent police crackdown on the homeless Downtown.
"Officer Dittemore told him that it was now the policy of the Indiana War Memorials Commission to remove all homeless persons from the property controlled by the Commission and that the Executive Director of the Indiana War Memorials Commission and the Mayor of Indianapolis wanted to remove the homeless from Monument Circle," the lawsuit says.
The man wasn't arrested, but there was a clear implication that he would be if he returned. He apparently wasn't doing anything overtly illegal -- not aggressively accosting strangers for money or urinating in public -- but merely sitting there, looking homeless. People sitting there not looking homeless -- on public property, which we are all entitled to peacefully occupy -- were presumably not asked to move along. This amounts to a de facto charge of vagrancy, a legal concept that has fallen out of favor for good reason. It is one of those selectively enforced laws that are ignored for most people and used only to target those whom society dislikes but can't find a valid reason to bring into the criminal justice system.
Still. Before "the homeless" became embedded in the national consciousness, this country had a lot of vagrants, those who were "idle, refused to work although capable of doing so, and lived on the charity of others" -- bums, in other words. Those bums are still out there in great number, along with those who wander the streets because they are mentally ill or consumed by drug or alcohol addiction. But we lose track of them because of our collective need to think all the homeless are ordinary families destroyed by an unfeeling capitalist society. Is it too much to hope for that we can sort out the homeless factions -- and thus come up with targeted solutions -- without going back to bad and selectively enforced laws?
Comments
I just re-discovered a Green Day song that makes reference to "the cheapskates and the losers." Whenever I hear that lyric, I think of my collection business where it's essentially my job to distinguish between the two. The cheapskates you have to figure out a way to persuade them to work if they're not doing so or separate them from their money if they are. The losers you just thank for their time and wish them luck.
Of course it's too much to hope for. According to the authorities, ALL members of the homeless class are dangerous criminals that must be swept from the streets. In general, the public agrees with this assessment.
The problem, of course, is what is to be done with them? If they were inducted into the criminal justice system, it would be overwhelmed.
Do we build "Homeless Prisons" and lock them away until they die?
Do we execute them, making homelessness a de facto capital crime?
Let's ask the "experts." How would they solve the situation?
So many of the homeless are the mentally ill that have no where to go since they closed down most of the institutions for them. I guess thats what compassionate conservatism is all about.
Where is the christian value of compassion for the poor and the sick?
Maybe if he wins his lawsuit he can build a home---and also take in some of his friends. Hmm, a dozen or so less homeless on the streets, wouldn't that be nice.
I've often wondered how the ACLU finds such cases.