Homeless: Less likely victim than criminal

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Crimes involving people without fixed addresses are less than 1 percent of those reported over six months.

By Lauren Gregory Staff Writer

Homeless people involved in crimes are nearly six times more likely to be the perpetrators than victims, police records show.

Of the 119 crime reports filed between Sept. 2, 2006, and March 2, 2007, in which an individual’s address is listed as homeless, 100 were suspects and 19 were victims, an analysis of Chattanooga Police Department records shows.

Police reports that involve a homeless person represent less than 1 percent of the 17,497 reports filed in that period.

Crime and the homeless have emerged as an issue in recent community forums on Mayor Ron Littlefield’s proposed homeless shelter at the Farmers Market property on East 11th Street. Opponents of the project have argued that crime will increase in the area while supporters contend that critics are fueling misconceptions about the homeless.


www.timesfreepress.com/absolutenm/templates/local.aspx?articleid=8&zoneid=7

[Longshot! [ Saint ]]

I have so much I can say, I'll just play a video game instead.

It's embarassing to have to preach the obvious.

[Kordax]

This ONE article is wonderful.

The TFP is mysteriously bucking the coalition of foundation "visionaries", foundation-funded non-profits & lackey foundation-funded public sector strumpets who are all collectively accustomed to treating the public to unchallenged rounds of press released manipulation, manipulation, manipulation.

But what the hell happened here? A reporter dared to challenge our foundation / non-profit / politician clustered group-think sensibility -- "Chattanooga's homeless are docile victims of the cruel, one paycheck missing syndrome" -- "Chattanooga's homeless are women & children" (Michelle Michelle can always be heard hyperventilating _{"It's women & children! It's women & children! It's women & children"} -- "WE MUST HELP THEM by complying with whatever our betters have decided we must do" (autocrats all) – but then a TFP reporter mucks around in the public record arena & says, “Homeless people involved in crimes are nearly six times more likely to be the perpetrators than victims, police records show.”

The “Chattanooga 1994 Survey of the Homeless” study provides a more accurate snapshot of crime and the homeless than current police reports, he said. Almost 28 percent of the homeless people surveyed in 1994 said someone had committed a crime against them while they were homeless, he said.”

Dorris SURVEYED the homeless? A survey is more accurate than police reports? And our illustrious city has been making public policy for years based on this cr@p? Sure, police reports don’t capture everything that happens throughout the homeless community or any other community for that matter, but this foundation beholden guy is asking the public to accept that surveying the homeless generates more accurate information that police reports? I'd like Dorris & his group to publish the results of a "homeless survey" that included questions like the following & then see him try to weasel-word his way around the public good of surveys:

1. Should the wealthy buy homes for all the homeless, yes or no?
2. Which would you rather have – free drug treatment/rehab or free drugs?
3. Should the government give you cash rather than making you beg?
4. Should the homeless be permitted to set up camps anywhere in the city they wish?
5. Should the homeless receive free transportation 24/7 at taxpayer expense?
6. And Do you personally commit crimes or do others prey on you?

What would any criminal much less a homeless criminal say in a survey? “Yes, I’m a criminal?” Seems to me the police encounter clots of homefull & homeless low life people daily at crime scenes where their memories are as fresh as it gets, and I wonder if they conduct a Dossis-style survey by asking the guilty to raise their hands or fill out a form (survey) – my god! The guilty confess on the spot, the wheat separated from the chaff – how come we still waste money with trials & defense attorneys when a survey should generate accurate information making the court system unnecessary?

If it's appropriate for officers to post their homeless encounters -- their "insider", real world street perspectives formed over years' of dealing with the homeless gentry, readers of this forum might be able to avoid blindly accepting the pre-packaged conclusions that the John Dorris / Chattanooga Homeless Coalition will be working overtime now to cram down the public’s throats to counter the TFP's rogue reprter's piece.


GREAT BIG “THANK YOU” TO THE TFP!

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I immediately thought of you when I posted this Kordax. That Ms. Gregory is a dang good reporter. She even promoted me in one of her articles, so I am partial to her.

[LimitedRecourse]

Another minor point to add...most homeless people won't/don't report crimes against them simply because THEY ARE WANTED for crimes committed themselves. They are lazy....not stupid.