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Homelessness and Crime
From: The British Library
| By:
Jennie Grimshaw |
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION |
Homelessness is endemic around the world, yet only recently have the media and politicians focussed on the phenomenon as a shared concern. Complex in its origins, homelessness is cast either as a matter of personal responsibility or as a function of the hierarchical structure of capitalist society, where homelessness is the product of circumstances beyond individual control. In the following article, Jennie Grimshaw of the British Library shares her research into the links between homelessness and crime and shows how the homeless can be both victims and perpetrators of crime. |
Approaches to explaining homelessness
According to the New Right, conservative view, homeless people are the authors of their own misfortunes due to their feckless and irresponsible behaviour. They are presented as part of a dangerous and immoral underclass with criminal tendencies which is a threat to the safety of property, the respectability of neighbourhoods and the stability of society. This view of homeless people was clearly articulated by the right-wing conservative UK governments of the early 1990s. Thus John Major, as prime minister, suggested that homeless people slept rough because they wanted to (BBC Radio 4 "Today" programme, prior to the general election in 1992, and again in April 1994, quoted by Gill Jones). Beggars were described as an eyesore which should be dealt with by the law (John Major, again in May 1994, quoted by Gill Jones) and a succession of government ministers denounced teenage single mothers who got pregnant deliberately to jump the housing queue and jobless shirkers who lived on benefits at the taxpayers expense. This rhetoric is echoed by Prime Minister Tony Blair in his foreword to the Social Exclusion Unit's report on rough sleeping, where he describes it as "bad for the rest of society," explaining that "many people feel intimidated by rough sleepers, beggars and street drinkers, and rough sleeping can blight areas and damage business and tourism." |
While rhetoric from the right on the homeless is based on a series of deviant stereotypes such as squatters, New Age travellers and teenage single mothers, and emphasises individual responsibility and choice, the response of many on the left is to stress structural inequalities and constraints. Homelessness is seen as stemming from the structure of society. The important factors are seen to be issues such as the housing market, the labour market and the benefits system. For example, in the UK, the 1980 Housing Act introduced the right of tenants to buy council houses and flats at a discount. Over the next 10 years, the stock of social housing was depleted by the sale of over 1.5 million council houses under the Right to Buy policy. The situation was aggravated by a simultaneous decline in the number of private dwellings available for renting, by the poor condition of council house stock and by the then government's refusal to allow more than 25 percent of the revenue from council house sales to be spent on provision for the homeless. These factors led to a shortage of affordable accommodation and contributed to the rise in homelessness in the early 1990s. A further contributory factor at that time was high levels of unemployment during a severe economic recession in the early years of John Major's premiership. |
A third view sees homeless people as socially inadequate, maladjusted and/or psychologically disturbed. As such, they are regarded as being vulnerable and in need of help and support rather than censure or blame. Individual behaviour which leads to homelessness is perceived to be a consequence of psychological damage, which in turn may result from such factors as physical or sexual abuse in childhood. Pushed away from their families and damaged by their experiences, many have deep-rooted feelings of guilt and shame which continue even after they have left home. None of this is conducive to being able to hold down a job, manage money or sustain a tenancy. |
Leaving home
People may leave home because they are victims of crime in the form of abuse by other members of the household, or because they themselves have committed offences. |
Young people interviewed by Pat Carlen in a major investigation of homelessness in three central England cities gave succinct and graphic accounts of the horrific experiences of sexual and physical abuse that led to their flight from home: |
"I was being sexually abused by my grandparents, so I left home when I was 17 and slept rough on the street." --Wayne, aged 23 |
"Me stepmum was sexually abusing me and beating me up, so I went into a kids' home. Used to run away all the time. Just couldn't handle being grounded." --Tim, aged 20 |
In this study of 100 homeless young people (77 males and 23 females), a total of nine young men and 10 young women claimed that one reason for leaving home was that they were suffering physical abuse there, while three young men and six young women (a quarter of the women interviewed) gave sexual abuse as the precipitating cause of their homelessness. Research by Downing-Orr into youth homelessness in London and Sydney confirms the association between abuse and homelessness. Some 19 percent of the homeless young Londoners interviewed reported experiencing sexual abuse during childhood, and 45 percent said they had been physically abused. |
Similarly, many women become homeless because of the need to escape violence from their husband, partner or former partner. As part of a study of homelessness law in the UK prior to the implementation of the Housing Act of 1996, Malos and Hague interviewed 80 women living in some form of temporary accommodation because they were escaping domestic violence. Most of the women had suffered both physical and psychological abuse. Some had been sexually abused or raped. The majority had been abused by their male partners or ex-partners, and almost half had been married to their abusers. |
Deviant or criminal behaviour may also encourage leaving home. Young people may leave of their own accord as a way of escaping family controls that limit their involvement in criminal activities; they may flee to avoid court appearances or conditions of probation; and, as the following example quoted by Carlen illustrates, they may be evicted by their parents: |
"My father used to say to me, 'The first sign of police coming to this door, you're out.' He was fairly strict. [Soon after Roy had left home at the age of 16, he was involved in a burglary, his first and only offence]. I was in Longton police station after the burglary, and a copper came round and I said, 'When am I going home?' He said, 'Well, we've contacted your parents and they don't want you.' I went to a secure unit."
--Roy, aged 23 |
Of the 100 young people interviewed by Carlen in the Three Cities Project, 15 had been thrown out of home after they had committed a crime, after they had been in prison or after they had become involved in drug use. Altogether 24 had become homeless after they had become involved in crime, but nine of them had not been in trouble since. |
As well as precipitating eviction by parents, involvement in illegal drug use does not make people into ideal tenants and may contribute to their becoming repeatedly homeless in a number of other ways. These include complaints from neighbours about rowdiness, failure to pay rent because of expenditure on drugs and alcohol, and the need to flee drug dealers to whom money is owed or who force them to allow their flats to be used for dealing. |
Perpetrators or victims?
Once on the streets, homeless people are involved in crime both as victims and as perpetrators. They are victimised by their peers (other homeless people) and by the general public. Victimisation may take the form of being on the receiving end of verbal abuse and threats, suffering theft, robbery and extortion, or undergoing violent assault. The homeless are particularly open to victimisation because: |
Their public lifestyle on the streets makes them easily available targets.
Use of drugs and alcohol, both of which are prevalent among homeless people, can reduce vigilance and increase negligence on the part of the user, leaving him/her open to property losses or violent attacks. |
Deviant survival strategies such as theft and illicit drug supply, which are widespread among street people, carry with them the risk of retaliation by those whose property has been lifted or who may feel they have been "ripped off" in a drug transaction.
There is a tendency for them to be reluctant to report crime to the police, either out of aversion to unsympathetic officialdom or for fear of implicating themselves in other offences. |
Evidence from a recent study of rough sleepers in Swansea, Glasgow and London by Scott Ballintyne shows that they are in as much danger from the general public as from other members of the homeless community. The general public were reported to be a regular source of abusive, threatening behaviour and wounding. Late at night was regarded as being particularly risky, when public houses were closing and groups of young men were seen to be most dangerous. |
A study of London beggars by Alison Murdoch also uncovered high levels of verbal and physical violence perpetrated by members of the public. Thirty-nine percent of respondents had at some time experienced physical abuse while begging, and of these, 50 percent had been hurt on more than two occasions. "Men who had been in the pub" were identified as people who posed a particular threat to beggars, along with skinheads and football hooligans. However, some individuals had been assaulted by suited city workers and even by women. |
Violence between homeless people is endemic--an integral part of street culture and lifestyle. Downing-Orr's research into the homeless community in London revealed frequent fights between street youths. The fights were the result of theft, betrayal to the police or other authorities, substance abuse or gossip, and half of them involved the use of knives, chains, broken glass and baseball bats. While many of the young people were violently attacked during fights, almost a quarter of respondents had also been brutally attacked in non-fight situations and were the victims of stabbings, kickings and rape: |
"It was March 20 and 21. I went back to the squat because the weather was really, really bucketing down and it was really cold as well. It was the squat of a mate, Rob's mate. It was about three in the morning and he was on top of me and that. I didn't scream. I just couldn't. I just froze and I was frightened because he was a boxer. He could have hurt me ... "
--Michelle, London |
Types of offence
Offending by homeless people can be divided into three categories: survival crime, "lifestyle" crime and crimes arising from stigmatisation. |
Survival crime
Survival crimes are those which, their perpetrators argue, are committed out of dire necessity in response to destitution. They include begging (which in England is an infraction of the 1824 Vagrancy Act), prostitution and property crime such as theft, shoplifting, burglary, mugging and stealing cars, as shown by personal accounts quoted from Carlen's book: |
"I've done prostitution, yeh. You just stand on street corners, you know, just waiting for the cars to come round, and wait for punters. And when they stop, just go over to them and ask 'em if they're looking for business. If they say yeh, you just get in the car. If they want a hand job or a blow job, it's £20. If they want more, then it gets more." --Spanner, aged 19 |
Lifestyle crime
Lifestyle crime is that which is committed in response to the stress of homeless living. It includes possession of illicit drugs and minor crimes of violence. |
Many homeless people have experienced damaging childhoods, including disrupted family relationships, separation from parents, and physical and sexual abuse. Homelessness brings a new set of problems of insecurity, isolation, ill health and physical deprivation, seemingly as uncontrollable as those in childhood. To alleviate the stress of a chaotic and uncertain lifestyle, and with little access to medical help, homeless people seek relief in drugs. |
While taking drugs may soften the discomforts of a homeless lifestyle, other crime is committed for thrill and excitement. Homeless people lack financial resources to fund a normal social life, and committing crime is seen as a way of relieving boredom: |
"I nick stuff all the time. Sometimes I need the stuff, sometimes I don't. I like to go shoplift clothes on Oxford Street. Sometimes I come back with four, five hundred pounds' worth of clothes. It's mostly 'cause it's exciting in some ways to see if I can get away with it ... "
--Sarah, London, quoted from Downing-Orr |
It is argued by Baron and Hartnagel (1998) that street culture and lifestyle are inherently violent. Street cultural values, for example, relating to protection and guardianship, can cause the escalation of altercations between individuals into group fights as friends weigh in to help out an assault victim. |
The thinking is that spending time on the street isolates people from conventional society as they become immersed in a street lifestyle whose values they come to accept as their own. This immersion leads them into close contact with criminal peers while perhaps breaking down inhibitions about the use of violence, stealing or drug abuse. |
Crime arising from stigmatisation
Public concern about homeless people as potential threats to community safety can be reflected in closer attention being paid to their behaviour by the police and to their being arrested for offences which would otherwise be ignored. For example, the Metropolitan Police formed the Charing Cross Homeless Unit in central London in 1990 specifically to police rough sleepers and other visible homeless people such as beggars. They were given the remit of trying to reduce homelessness by referring rough sleepers to agencies which could provide them with support, focusing particularly on those who were vulnerable because of age or ill health, as well as dealing with crime committed by and against the homeless. However, their exclusive attention to the homeless of Charing Cross proved to be not wholly benign. The relatively high ratio of police to homeless in the Charing Cross area meant that rough sleepers and people involved in activities commonly associated with homelessness such as street drinking or begging were more at risk of becoming the objects of formal police powers than either the "respectable" population or even homeless persons subjected to conventional policing in other areas. Thus, of the 8,033 arrests made in the Charing Cross Division of the Metropolitan Police in 1996/1997, 1,384 (17 percent) were of people of no fixed abode. Most of these arrests, 70 percent in total, were for begging, drunkenness and other "minor offences." This left only 21 percent of arrests against the homeless for more serious criminal matters, compared with 55 percent over the division as a whole. Homeless people, in other words, were subjected to a far greater risk of formal intrusion by the police and were also at greater risk of arrest and charge for far less serious offences (Fooks and Pantazis, 1999). |
Conclusion
This brief study has revealed the multifarious linkages between homelessness and crime. The homeless are, paradoxically, both victims of crime and offenders, but, as the weight of the research evidence shows, they are far more sinned against than sinning. |
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