NPR and WashPost Take Up Criminalization

This is how not to do law enforcement. Austin Texas Police in full riot gear patrol near the shelter. These officers cannot be identified and their badges are not visible. Photo by Richard Troxell

NPR had a nice story about the Justice Department weighing in on the Bell vs. Boise Lawsuit.   This was a good assessment of the issues with an interview of Eric Tars of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. It is worth the listen.

The Washington Post also did a good overview of the issue. 

"Homelessness is just becoming more visible in communities, and when homelessness becomes more visible, there’s more pressure on community leaders to do something about it," Tars says. "And rather than actually examining what’s the best thing to do about homelessness, the knee-jerk response — as with so many other things in society — is 'we’ll address this social issue with the criminal justice system.'"

There was a story about this issue here:

• Upfront magazine also had a story
• Think Progress posted a story
• The San Diego Local newspaper covered the story
• Vocative had a story about the DOJ report
• Madison Wisconsin local paper wrote about the Justice Department
• NBC News covered the issue here.
• Boise Idaho local weekly paper had this story
• A nice piece from Al Jazeera America about the DOJ briefing
• Here is the Justice Department press release on the issue

By Brian Davis

Posts reflect the opinion of those who sign the entry

We felt that this was such a historic decision that we have dedicated a page on our website to the decision which has a copy of the well written brief.