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Comment by beardedetim | Hacker News Reader

What is the reasoning for giving them a criminal offense? Not “because they broke the law” but like, what are we hoping to get out of sending them to jail/giving them a fine? That they choose to stop being homeless? That being in jail makes them not homeless anymore?

I think it’s a fools errand to jail homeless people. It seems like a waste of money to me but I don’t have a better solution or idea on how to spend my tax dollars so am really interested in hearing more on the positive side of jailing them.

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Putting them in jail prevents them from doing things that the taxpayers don't like: building fires under overpasses, leaving needles and human waste in the streets, harassing passersby, etc. It also puts them in contact with social services, in some cases.

It's not a perfect solution, or even a good one. We can and should develop a more compassionate alternative.

Ah, so it’s not about directly a consequence to them for their actions but a way to appease people/clean up where tax payers live? I disagree that’s a good move but it makes sense that we would need to do something similar.

> It's not a perfect solution, or even a good one. We can and should develop a more compassionate alternative.

I'm guessing you don't see providing cheap shelter in empty areas that have no other good use (like a highway underpass) as a more compassionate alternative then?

Jail costs 80k a year per prisoner in California on average. That's a hell of a lot of money, and it clearly doesn't work to keep people from being homeless.

I think a more compassionate alternative really just is a cheaper shelter for homeless than what Jail costs us, and programs that actually show some level of success at reentrance into society.

I'd be willing to change my tune if good data showed that Jails were both cost effective, and actually acted as a deterrent for homelessness, and was a good pathway to reentrance, but everything I looked at seems to indicate it's terrible at all of these, and ends up just being a very expensive shelter.

>what are we hoping to get out of sending them to jail/giving them a fine?

disincentivizing them and/or others from doing the same? As GP argued they're basically annexing public land for their own use.

My anecdote is that people that are homeless are not really disincentivized by these things. They’re shitting in the street and sleeping in an underpass. I don’t think three hots and a cot is really an issue they want to avoid with any serious meaning.

Similarly, any fine will not get paid because, how would it?

I think we might disincentivize the “hippies” that are choosing to be homeless and care about these things. For sure that is possible. Do we think that the % of people that are choosing that lifestyle is high enough that it will be cost effective to tax payers? I don’t think so but it’s definitely something to look into more closely.

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