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As someone who has a degree in Criminal Justice, I can tell you that not all crimes are reported. How many times do things happen to our property and we figure there is nothingpolice can do? So why report it? All research has indicated that rapes are under reported as well as other sexual crimes.We also know that not all people report crime because they do not want to bring attention to themselves because they may be involved in criminal activity themselves or they are embarrassed that a certain incident took place and they became a victim.For example…a person may have been tricked into giving money to some disreputable contractor, who then took off with their money, leaving them with no backup paperwork to prove it. The person maybe did not even get that contractor’s name. In South Florida, we saw a lot of that after Hurricane Wilma.
We knowsure that our population of homeless people, for similar reasons, do not always callpolice when they are attacked, but the biggest reason isthey may be wanted for small crimes such as sleeping in the public or trespassing. When shelter providers see the clients check in at the shelterbruiseslacerations and even broken arms, we ask them what happened. Many times they say they were just sitting down and some young group of kids came over to them and beat them while calling them names. When we ask if they called the police, we get answers like… “I did not because I have a warrant and did not want to go to jail with no pain medication.”
It is a proven fact that many jurisdictions harass the homeless because they have pressure fromresidents and city leaders.In many circumstances, this makes the homeless afraid of the police.However, in some jurisdictions the police are very friendly to the homeless. also learned in the last year or two thatSt. Petersburg, Florida Police went out and destroyed the Tent City by cutting all the tents of the homeless even though it was on an approved site for them to use. They, the police, took orders from City Administration. we have behavior like that, it tends to prove that the homeless are sometimes afraid of the police and therefore do not want to have any contact with them at all.
Sometimes the police are unwilling to take a report or will classify it not as an attack, but “unfounded.”They figure that the victim, the homeless person, will never show up at court or will make a bad witness…so why take the time to take a report. Also, sometimes officers who do not like the constant complaintsfrom residents on certain homeless individuals and who consider them ato society will almost convince the homeless person it is their own fault why they got beat and to change their lives.
We also hear manythem say that when they called the police in many jurisdictions that are extremely busy with police calls thatthey have to wait an hour for an officer to show up and sometimes they leave before a report is taken.
Occasionally, the homeless themselves who have good relationships with the police may not report a crime or an attack to them because they may have been sleeping when the attack took place and they saw nothing because it was too dark or they could not even tell if the person who attacked them was a male or a female.figure, why call the police if they have nothing to offer them to identify the subject.of the relationships with the police may be so good that the homeless person feels bad to call them when they have no evidence and they know just how busy their police friends are.of them have become so used to the little attacks or even serious attacks; they just figure it comes with living on the streets, so why bother to report it.
With all the above we can surely, like all crimes, there is under reporting; but some experts agree that the statistics of unreported attacks on the homeless will be quite high because of the characteristicsthe homeless population as well as the constant battle of the Police and the Homeless.
Written By
Sean Anthony Cononie
National Homeless
Hate Crimes Expert
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