The Street People
Channel: PublicResourceOrg
Date: 2008-07-23

National Institute of Justice
The Police Foundation

The Street People
A19315VNB1 - 1986

Panel discussion focuses on police response to runaways, the mentally ill, and the homeless. In Santa Barbara, public drinking and drunkenness are illegal, but street people guilty of these nuisance crimes rarely spend more than 6 hours in jail. While eccentric people are often the subject of citizen calls to police, they are only incarcerated if they are a danger to themselves or others, which is rarely the case. Philadelphia, which has similar laws, operates a winter outreach program for the homeless. When the temperature drops below 10 degrees, police encourage the homeless to seek shelter, but pick up only those who are mentally incompetent. While street people do not have the right to misbehave, they do have the same rights as everyone else in this country, including the right to a shelter out of the cold.