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Should Police Officers Have Discretion In Handling The Homeless

520 Words3 Pages

While being homeless is not a crime, police officers need to know how to handle a situation properly when they are facing a homeless person. “The Seattle Police Department uses community service officers (CSOs) to handle many of the homeless-related situations.” It is basically their job to help homeless people seek shelters, or send them to a drug or alcohol rehab program. I think that having community service officers in the departments are beneficial but I also believe that every officer should have appropriate training on how to handle homeless people or mentally ill people. If I was dealing with a homeless person and I can see that they have issues with drugs or alcohol I wouldn’t want to hurt the individual. In order to be a good representation of my police department and the city, I would do the right thing and I would want to assist them with finding a shelter or an alcohol/drug treatment program. Some homeless people actually commit crimes on purpose so they can be arrested, and then get sent to jail or prison where they will be provided with a bed and food. …show more content…

As stated in Chapter 8, “Police officers exercise great discretion in handling the mentally ill.” If I was an officer, I wouldn’t want to use force on a homeless or mentally ill person unless I absolutely have to and if they have a weapon or are behaving in an aggressive manner. “Mentally ill persons are also much more likely to be the victims of crime and, therefore, are more likely to come to the attention of the police.” Serial killers choose their victims before they kill them and mentally ill people can be an easy target for serial

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In the past few years, there have been some tragic outcomes for police cases involving individuals with a mental illness. Before the Sammy Yatim case, there have been cases involving; Michael Eligon, Sylvia Klibingaitis, Robert Dziekanski, and Paul Boyd. Each of these individuals posed a threat to the community and each also had a mental illness, and initially shot by a police officer. A recent case that has been raising awareness for police shootings resulting death involving an individual with a mental illness is the Sammy Yatim case. As like the other related cases, Yatim had a mental illness and posed a threat to the community.

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What happened that they ended living on the streets? ... When I decided to major in Social Work I had a passion to learn, help and work with the homeless. But, then I realize that is not only “helping” it’s providing them with the proper resources that they need assistance with and also making sure they want the assistance. Many of the homeless who live in the street suffer from addictions and mental disorders which can probably be one of the reasons why is somewhat difficult to help them.

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Another reason to not criminalize the homeless is all of the costs associated with criminalizing them. Many do not stop and think of all of the costs that come along with laws against the homeless. Not to mention the costs when the laws become stricter and are enforced more heavily. According to Scott Keyes, a writer for thinkprocess.org, “When you consider all the associated costs of criminalizing homelessness — court fees, judges’ time, officers’ time, money spent jailing people, not to mention all the associated medical costs of keeping people on the streets — it makes little financial sense for cities to continue passing these types of ordinances”(Keyes). This quote is just an outline of what the costs are, it does not actually tell you how

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Sometimes people that are mentally ill do not realize they are unstable and do things they wouldn’t normally do if they were in a right frame of mind. This is where I will use a pathos approach and try to make them understand by making this an emotional argument. Showing current issues with weapons and the needless deaths, such as the reporter and her camera man, killed just recently. This could appeal to the reader’s emotional response to the

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There are so many mentally ill people in correctional facilities because most families do not know how to help their loves ones who suffer from a mental illness, so the call the police for help. Majority of the police officers do not know what to do or how to handle people with a mental illness disease. Police officers who are not trained to deal with the mentally ill often do not recognize that person is ill. Some police officers do not recognize if the individual should or not go to jail or a treatment center or medical facility. The impact of law enforcement and the judicial system dealing with people with a mental illness is to assist the inmates with the help they need.

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So what is a city supposed to do when some homeless people reject available shelter and services and insist on camping on public property? That 's the issue Denver has faced since last fall near the downtown Samaritan House shelter, and officials demonstrated a great deal of patience in trying to resolve the problem without moving against the camps themselves. But the problem did not subside.

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I agree with this statement. However, I do not solely blame the criminal for their actions due to their mental illness. Creating stricter gun laws, expanding mental health awareness

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Therefore, we shouldn't judge the behavior of the homeless to let them access homeless shelters. In short, the opposing argument that only well-behaved people should enter homeless shelters is flawed because many people have made mistakes in life. In short, we should help the homeless by: giving homeless people a voice, giving homeless people access to homeless shelters without being judged on their behavior, and supporting the non-profit organizations that want to end homelessness. Also, the opposing argument that only well-behaved homeless people should be able to access homeless shelters is flawed because many people make mistakes in their life. Finally, we should put an end to homelessness using these great, effective

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It in our nature to be respect or just ignore them. I agree that the problem needs to be addressed . The only problem is deciding whether to choose to have a conversation or just plain ignore the homeless. I believe San Antonio police department; have been doing every possible situation that is assigned to them concerning the homeless. If the San Antonio police did not citation the homeless there would be a big outbreak of homeless roaming our streets.

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In all fairness, I had those same ideas too. Many people have driven or walked past a group of homeless people and ignored them or gone out of their way to not make contact. It’s just part of our culture. Homeless people are shunned and looked down upon. Over time, the word homeless has taken on a very negative connotation, and those labels such as, criminal, lazy and addict have taken over our perception of who homeless people are.

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If they really need help. I rather buy them food instead of just handing out money so they can go buy drugs or alcohol so they can drink. In this day of age, you can’t tell who 's homeless and who’s a panhandler because they dress the part and everyone is a liar sad and honest truth. you can say one experience ruined it for me. Panhandlers are like the bubonic plague its growing and growing and running the economy and its spreading fast.

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The issue of homelessness in America has been evident since the early 1600’s. Across the country men, women and children spend their nights on the streets not knowing when or if they will ever find a permanent home. States and federal officials or city councils have tried to alleviate or at least reduce the number of homeless over the last several decades at a city, state or national level but it continues to be an ongoing problem. There is a multitude of factors that account for the growing homeless population that affects each state in the country differently. Though there are many contributing factors that contribute to the amount of people living on the street at any given night in the U.S.

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Homeless are often set up for failure by these things so they end up getting into trouble and in jail by not being able to pay for such unreasonable things. Police are already viewed pretty negatively by the homeless and by doing this it just adds to the negativity. So, homeless become even more less susceptible to come to the police for help. Homeless that fining effects are often put in a position where they have no place to go because shelters are either to fall or too violent and sleeping in your car or the streets is criminalized. To conclude I think this solution to getting homeless off the street is moving in the opposite direction.

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780 Words | 4 Pages

We put up spikes near roads and businesses to keep the homeless from sleeping there. We should be giving them places to sleep, not taking places away. I don’t like how the homeless are treated, simply because they don’t have a home. Everyone thinks that homeless people are drug addicts and that they deserve not to have a home. That may be true for some, but the others, they didn’t want to be homeless.

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Lastly, if people really want to help the homeless, give money to charities because it will help long term. Most homeless people use the money they are handed on drugs and alcohol, so you should not give your money to the homeless. An article titled, “Help the Homeless- don 't give them spare change” states that 80% of homeless people beg so they can get money and spend it on drugs. Most of these people who are buying drugs and alcohol are getting the powerful drugs such as crack, cocaine, heroin, super strength beers and ciders. These drugs cost a lot of money and are contributing to their addiction which is making it more difficult to get their life back on track.

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