Criminalization Of Homelessness

iety’s Perspective on Homelessness

Society’s perspective on the issue of homelessness also affects the issue itself. While some may consider homelessness an issue related to the individual, it is often a failure of society and not a personal fault. When the criminal justice system punishes the poor for being poor they are essentially fueling the cycle of poverty rather than attempting to help solve the problem. This also subjects the homeless to bad policy because it is the people who lead the direction of policy which tends to negatively impact the homeless (“Housing Not Handcuffs” 2016). The criminalization of homelessness could not have been possible without the support of the public. Even if society is just acting as bystanders to the criminalization

It only makes matters worse. Society has this misconception that people that are homeless are unemployed and never work, but many homeless individuals work and criminalizing them only threatens their employment status. For instance, someone that is homeless can get arrested or fined for breaking one of the laws that ban sleeping in public, or loitering, and then have to miss work or pay a fine that affects their already scarce income. Or if they cannot afford that fine, then they may be subject to jail time or extra jail time, which interrupts their ability to work and make money. Rutgers University conducted a study that found 42% of individuals with suspended license lost their job and 45% of those had trouble finding employment. In addition, to being unable to pay fines or bail, having a criminal record also limits a person’s ability to find employment and a

The media is a powerful tool that interprets social phenomenon and attempts to generate explanations of it. A content analysis was conducted on network news to see how often homelessness was portrayed as a personal fault or societal problem. In 1973-1986 the problem of homelessness or poverty were twice as likely to be depicted as a “collective societal phenomenon” (Min 1999). However, this social phenomenon was influenced by an individual’s culture and personalized to individual actions rather than attributing the problem to institutions or social structures. The study refers to the two options as dispositional and situational. In fact homelessness and poverty is more likely to be interpreted as an individual fault rather than a systematic one based off on personal opinion (Min