Is it a Crime to be Poor?

Evidence for the UN Special Rapporteurs session on the Criminalisation of homelessness and poverty: John Middleton

We are all concerned about policies which criminalise vulnerable people, women and children and people from minorities. Criminalisation is a negative approach to addressing societal problems which are better met by understanding individual problems, providing preventive measures, and enabling supportive recovery and rehabilitation.

Criminalising homelessness represents one of the most extreme examples of the victim blaming approach, and presents, the possibility to make worse the conditions which caused the problem in the first place; for example, by denying services and rights to people who were first homeless, and then giving them criminal convictions for this.

Criminalisation and criminal justice interventions alone have never been effective in the control of drug related harms, [Notes 1,2] or addressing harms related to sex work. [Notes 3,4] An example of a recent Edmonton Police intervention with homeless people is a case study of what is possible when policing actions against homeless encampments, are driven by safety concerns, and delivered in partnership with health and social welfare services for homeless people. [ Note 5) [Appendix 1]

Most of my professional work has focussed on healthy public policies and on preventing problems arising in the first place. Many of the problems of homelessness arise through inequalities in income, access to education and unequal access to healthy environments. People with mental health problems, disabilities, and other vulnerabilities lack the means to cope, exposing them to poverty and homelessness, and criminal stigma. The problems faced by women, single parents, and people of different sexual orientation, need to be addressed with care and support, not with a criminal record and further societal exclusion. Adverse childhood experiences expose people to lifelong physical, mental and social harms and there is growing recognition of the need for trauma-informed approaches to policing, health and social care. Notes 6,7]

The UN Special Rapporteurs clearly recognise the need for policies to prevent homelessness. The Finnish approach ‘Housing First’ is a model which should be encouraged globally. [Note 8] The problem of the homeless, is being without a home. In addition to the overall housing first policy, there are now a wide range of self-build projects which address the need for a home and offer homeless people on the job training and skills in construction, helping both a housing and employment and economic need. And there is no reason why homeless people should not also benefit from high quality, innovative design and environmental standards in these schemes. Some examples of UK self-build and self-help housing schemes with homeless people are at appendix 2.

The alliance Is It A Crime to be Poor? have published research and articles expressing concerns that criminal justice services act unfairly and give worse outcomes in terms of punitive sentences to people who are homeless, poor, and vulnerable. The processing of these people is unequal from the start, with rights and opportunity for representation and appeal often denied. The treatment of women through criminal justice in the UK seems particularly harsh with many imprisoned who have not been represented in court. Why pregnant women are imprisoned at all should be a concern.

Regarding drugs offences, it is clear that the rich go to rehab, the poor go to jail. The stigmatisation of a criminal record only adds to the problem of being homeless in the first place, adding to numbers of homeless people and to their inability to help themselves back into regular society. Some key references from Is It A Crime to be Poor research are listed as appendix 3.
To conclude, it remains Crime to be Poor’s view that that the criminalisation of social and societal problems is inequitable and has no positive impact for our society. Thus, it seeks to radically reduce such criminalisation. To achieve this, collaborative interventions between health, policing, social welfare and housing authorities are needed to address problems of exclusion, vulnerability, homelessness, poverty, addictions, mental and physical disability; and there needs to be a fundamental overhaul of the unequal administration of justice between rich and poor.
Professor John Middleton

Global Law Enforcement and Public Health Fellow
Vice-President, Global Network for Academic Public Health
Honorary Professor of Public Health, Wolverhampton University

References

1. Csete J, Kamarulzaman A, Kazatchkine M, Altice F. et al Public health and international drug policy. Lancet 2016; 387: 1427–80. (The Johns Hopkins Lancet Commission on Drug policy and health) https://www.thelancet.com/action/showPdf?pii=S0140-6736%2816%2900619-X
2. Drug policy: grounding policy in evidence . Lancet November 25th 2023. Editorial DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(23)02617-X
3. Loch E. The case for fully decriminalising prostitution. Oxford University Faculty fo Law, March 12th 2022. Available at: https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/ouulj/blog/2022/03/case-fully-decriminalising-prostitution.
4. World Health Organisation. Global HIV, hepatitis and STIs programmes. Sex workers. https://www.who.int/teams/global-hiv-hepatitis-and-stis-programmes/populations/sex-workers
5. Edmonton police escalating teardown of homeless encampments, Alberta launches city reception centre.https://edmontonjournal.com/news/local-news/alberta-to-open-edmonton-homeless-reception-centre#:~:text=City%20police%20are%20escalating%20the,to%20take%20in%20displaced%20residents.
6. Bellis, M.A., Hughes, K., Ford, K. et al. Adverse childhood experiences and sources of childhood resilience: a retrospective study of their combined relationships with child health and educational attendance. BMC Public Health 18, 792 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5699-8
7. Bellis M et al. Tackling adverse childhood experiences: state of the art and options for action. Public Health Wales, WHO EURO, Liverpool John Moores University, January 23rd 2023. https://www.ljmu.ac.uk/-/media/phi-reports/pdf/2023-01-state-of-the-art-report-eng.pdf
8. Lester P. Eradicating homelessness in Finland. PD &R Edge. July 11th 2023. Available at: https://www.huduser.gov/portal/pdredge/pdr-edge-international-philanthropic-071123.html