This same thing happened two weeks ago. I was sitting at my computer, writing one of my incredible blogs. I looked over ad there was a little Asian girl passed out and drooling on her Air Mac. It was pretty obvious she was a college student, but you never know. Sometimes people I meet in here ask me what I am taking at school. Three security guards walked by, saw her, and kept going. Two other employees were helping someone look for a book about eight feet from her. None of them said anything.
What they had in common is that they both appear to be not homeless. Ironically, they were both Asian. (note to all the homeless in Bloomington: If you want to nap at the library, make yourself Asian) They were well dressed, wearing clean clothes, not seeming to be under the influence of any intoxicants, looking fine and respectable.
So what does this mean?If you have a place to live, it is okay for you to sleep in the Monroe County, Indiana library? If you don't have a place to live, you can't. Is this fair? Is this ethical?
Background for those of you not familiar with homelessness or libraries, and, in particular, the library in Bloomington, Indiana. Lots of homeless people spend their days in libraries. They are generally warm and dry. There are computers, books, and magazines to help you pass away the day. Being in the library is much better than being freezing and bored out on the street.
I don't know about other libraries, but the library here in Bloomington doesn't particularly enjoy the fan base they have in the homeless community. I have seen someone who is homeless, or who has met the standard this library has for profiling homeless people, close his or her eyes for thirty seconds while sitting at the computer or in a chair and at least one, if not more, security guards will wake him or her, sometimes threatening to call the police.
I guess my question is why all this arbitrary policing. People in authority have too much wiggle room and discretion when enforcing rules. This isn't even a homeless/not homeless issue. It isn't deep. It is black and white. Is sleeping in the library against the fucking rules or is it not? If it is, wake everyone sleeping up. Throw them out. If it isn't, leave everyone alone. The same thing happens on the streets. the police decide who to arrest for certain things, who to pull over, who to search, who to harass. Too much gray area. Too much discretionary use of authority. Something is against the rules/laws or it isn't. Take that discretion out of the hand of the enforcers, and make them treat everyone fairly. Not by race or sex or clothing or creed or whatever else makes us diverse, unique individuals. I have on clean clothes, I take showers, I shave, I have a cellphone that wasn't given to me by Obama, I have a laptop. Do I get to sleep? Do I look homeless?
I went to a community meeting the other night. Thursday night, to be exact. The topic for the meeting was: The Indiana Penal Code Revision and its Impact on Homelessness and Prison and Jail Populations. A long name for a broad topic, which is hard to cover in a two hour period. Broad, far-reaching topics seem to be the trend in meetings right now. At least the meetings I have been going to. It is like the best way to ensure you won't have to worry about not getting your topic covered is to make it so general you couldn't possibly get it covered. No one is let down that way. This meeting had the best of intentions, but quickly went in directions not on the itinerary.
Indiana just revised its penal code for the first time since the 70's. The felonies went from classes A, B, C, and D to Levels 1-6. So there are now six classes of felonies to cover the laws and sentencing in the state of Indiana. The main goal of this revision is to supposedly reduce the number of people in state prison.
One good thing to come out of all this is that the penalties for drug possessions have been greatly reduced. Many of the lower level infractions have been changed from felonies to misdemeanors. This was done because people sentenced for misdemeanors are the responsibility of the county and not the state. The county can't just sentence them and pass them on to the Department of Corrections to deal with. The county will now have to pay for the offenders incarceration. Suddenly, locking someone up for that $20 bag of dope isn't as attractive.
The bad part is that the good-time credit earned has been changed from 50% between 25 and 0%, depending on your crime. Again, the main goal stated by the legislature for the revision was to reduce the number of non-violent drug offenders. It used to be the case that if you were sentenced to eight years, and stayed out if trouble, you could be out in four. You received a day for a day good-time credit. You would then have parole for up to two years, and if you screwed up in those two years, you returned to finish the time of your sentence you were awarded off for good behavior. Now you are doing between six and eight years on an eight year sentence. One study has said that any reduction in the number of people in prison brought out by the restructuring of the penal code will be negated by the changes to the amount of good-time credit awarded.
Changes were also made to the time-cut programs, Inmates can complete educational and rehabilitational programs to earn an additional amount of time off their sentence. This credit used to some off the amount of time the inmate was expected to do with good-time, not it comes off the total time the inmate is sentenced to.
Confusing?
I will use my case as an example. I was sentenced under the old guidelines to twelve and a half years in prison. Without any infractions to take away my good-time credit, my earliest expected release date was in six years and three months. 50% of the time I was sentenced to. I completed a Department of Labor Apprenticeship and earned a six month credit off my earliest expected date. I also completed a program called the PLUS program, which was basically forced Christianity, but for the six month cut, I will pledge allegiance to anyone you want me to. So that is a year of cuts off my earliest expected release date. I stayed out of trouble, and got out in five years and three months.
The way that would work out now is this: I get sentenced to twelve and a half years. Say I am at the high end of the good-time scale, and am earning 25%. My earliest expected release date is in eight years and four months. If I don't get into any trouble. I can take programs, but he programs dome off the total now, not the earliest date, so I get the same programs and the same year time-cut. It comes off the twelve and a half years, so I now have eleven and a half years. I have to do 75% of that, or eight years and seven and a half months, instead of five years and three months. Fucking glad I got that out of my system before the changes.
Another problem I think will be created by all this, and I haven't heard anyone talking about, is the lose of control. When you take away an inmate's chances for good-time credit, you lose the control you previously had over him. You take away his hope. You lose your only bargaining chip. Good-time is dangled in front of an inmate like a carrot in front of a stubborn donkey. A guy will behave when he has something to lose if he doesn't. Nothing to lose, no reason to follow rules. What can they take from you? The legislature has created a dangerous situation by this, and I believe I will blow up in their faces. These changes went into effect on July 1, 2014, and only pertains to laws broken after that date. It will be awhile before the prisons start filling with people doing 75 to 100% of their time. When it happens, it will be a dangerous place for inmates and officers, even or than now. One thing I am sure will go up is assaults on staff, when people can vent their frustrations with little consequence.
We went over all this at the meeting. People were invited and encouraged to share their experiences in homelessness and of their dealings with the police. This quickly got out of hand. There were some homeless people at the meeting, most of the people were not. Most of them worked for groups which work with the homeless and felons or that were from groups trying to aid people in those situations. There were two homeless people in particular, lets call them Richard and Mary.
Richard is being called that because he was, and usually is, acting like a Dick. he was wasted. He wanted to cut everyone off, yelling about how they didn't give a shit and weren't doing anything. He wanted to fight people. This is his usual M.O. He is capable of working, but he chooses to get drunk instead. He was a disruption to a meeting where people were trying to think of ways to help people like him. He insulted the people who were working for him, doing more than he would ever do on his own to change his situation. Mary is a sadder case. She is an old woman, though probably not as old as she looks. Years of drinking and being homeless have not been kind to her. She is usually sitting downtown in Bloomington with a sign, asking for spare change. She will sit there until she gets enough money for a drink, then disappear, returning again when the bottle is gone. Mary had everyone tears, was crying herself, while she told her stories about being homeless, being harassed by the cops, and being unable to find a job. She told how she and Richard aren't allowed in the library, the cafe at the Kroger Supermarket, and the downtown bus terminal, all hotspots for the homeless to hang out. She had people ready to boycott Kroger's. The problem is, Mary and Richard are most likely not looking for jobs. I do believe there are times they are bothered by the police for no reason, because they are well known to the police. The are not kicked out of those places for being homeless, they are kicked out of them for constantly being drunk and constantly causing a scene. Myself and the rest of the people who live in this shelter patronize those places on a daily basis, with little problems.
This is a deep problem. Addiction and homelessness go hand in hand. Most homeless people do not get drunk or high and cause a scene everyday. There are even some people who have other reasons for being homeless. Mental illness, abuse, loss of family, there are a lot of ways it can happen, but in my experience, addiction is the numero uno cause for a person to become homeless.
But I don't think that means you give up, that they are lost forever. People come around when they are ready. I was a lost person for the past fourteen years. When I wasn't locked in some type of institution, I was a hopeless dope fiend. Still, I think I have more to offer society then some supposed "Good People". A person is also more likely to turn around when they have something to turn to. A job and a home might make someone more receptive to recovery, and where do you place the value? One life saved is worth how much?
This is a broad, far-reaching topic, and I have run out of time. More later.
I guess my question is why all this arbitrary policing. People in authority have too much wiggle room and discretion when enforcing rules. This isn't even a homeless/not homeless issue. It isn't deep. It is black and white. Is sleeping in the library against the fucking rules or is it not? If it is, wake everyone sleeping up. Throw them out. If it isn't, leave everyone alone. The same thing happens on the streets. the police decide who to arrest for certain things, who to pull over, who to search, who to harass. Too much gray area. Too much discretionary use of authority. Something is against the rules/laws or it isn't. Take that discretion out of the hand of the enforcers, and make them treat everyone fairly. Not by race or sex or clothing or creed or whatever else makes us diverse, unique individuals. I have on clean clothes, I take showers, I shave, I have a cellphone that wasn't given to me by Obama, I have a laptop. Do I get to sleep? Do I look homeless?
I went to a community meeting the other night. Thursday night, to be exact. The topic for the meeting was: The Indiana Penal Code Revision and its Impact on Homelessness and Prison and Jail Populations. A long name for a broad topic, which is hard to cover in a two hour period. Broad, far-reaching topics seem to be the trend in meetings right now. At least the meetings I have been going to. It is like the best way to ensure you won't have to worry about not getting your topic covered is to make it so general you couldn't possibly get it covered. No one is let down that way. This meeting had the best of intentions, but quickly went in directions not on the itinerary.
Indiana just revised its penal code for the first time since the 70's. The felonies went from classes A, B, C, and D to Levels 1-6. So there are now six classes of felonies to cover the laws and sentencing in the state of Indiana. The main goal of this revision is to supposedly reduce the number of people in state prison.
One good thing to come out of all this is that the penalties for drug possessions have been greatly reduced. Many of the lower level infractions have been changed from felonies to misdemeanors. This was done because people sentenced for misdemeanors are the responsibility of the county and not the state. The county can't just sentence them and pass them on to the Department of Corrections to deal with. The county will now have to pay for the offenders incarceration. Suddenly, locking someone up for that $20 bag of dope isn't as attractive.
The bad part is that the good-time credit earned has been changed from 50% between 25 and 0%, depending on your crime. Again, the main goal stated by the legislature for the revision was to reduce the number of non-violent drug offenders. It used to be the case that if you were sentenced to eight years, and stayed out if trouble, you could be out in four. You received a day for a day good-time credit. You would then have parole for up to two years, and if you screwed up in those two years, you returned to finish the time of your sentence you were awarded off for good behavior. Now you are doing between six and eight years on an eight year sentence. One study has said that any reduction in the number of people in prison brought out by the restructuring of the penal code will be negated by the changes to the amount of good-time credit awarded.
Changes were also made to the time-cut programs, Inmates can complete educational and rehabilitational programs to earn an additional amount of time off their sentence. This credit used to some off the amount of time the inmate was expected to do with good-time, not it comes off the total time the inmate is sentenced to.
Confusing?
I will use my case as an example. I was sentenced under the old guidelines to twelve and a half years in prison. Without any infractions to take away my good-time credit, my earliest expected release date was in six years and three months. 50% of the time I was sentenced to. I completed a Department of Labor Apprenticeship and earned a six month credit off my earliest expected date. I also completed a program called the PLUS program, which was basically forced Christianity, but for the six month cut, I will pledge allegiance to anyone you want me to. So that is a year of cuts off my earliest expected release date. I stayed out of trouble, and got out in five years and three months.
The way that would work out now is this: I get sentenced to twelve and a half years. Say I am at the high end of the good-time scale, and am earning 25%. My earliest expected release date is in eight years and four months. If I don't get into any trouble. I can take programs, but he programs dome off the total now, not the earliest date, so I get the same programs and the same year time-cut. It comes off the twelve and a half years, so I now have eleven and a half years. I have to do 75% of that, or eight years and seven and a half months, instead of five years and three months. Fucking glad I got that out of my system before the changes.
Another problem I think will be created by all this, and I haven't heard anyone talking about, is the lose of control. When you take away an inmate's chances for good-time credit, you lose the control you previously had over him. You take away his hope. You lose your only bargaining chip. Good-time is dangled in front of an inmate like a carrot in front of a stubborn donkey. A guy will behave when he has something to lose if he doesn't. Nothing to lose, no reason to follow rules. What can they take from you? The legislature has created a dangerous situation by this, and I believe I will blow up in their faces. These changes went into effect on July 1, 2014, and only pertains to laws broken after that date. It will be awhile before the prisons start filling with people doing 75 to 100% of their time. When it happens, it will be a dangerous place for inmates and officers, even or than now. One thing I am sure will go up is assaults on staff, when people can vent their frustrations with little consequence.
We went over all this at the meeting. People were invited and encouraged to share their experiences in homelessness and of their dealings with the police. This quickly got out of hand. There were some homeless people at the meeting, most of the people were not. Most of them worked for groups which work with the homeless and felons or that were from groups trying to aid people in those situations. There were two homeless people in particular, lets call them Richard and Mary.
Richard is being called that because he was, and usually is, acting like a Dick. he was wasted. He wanted to cut everyone off, yelling about how they didn't give a shit and weren't doing anything. He wanted to fight people. This is his usual M.O. He is capable of working, but he chooses to get drunk instead. He was a disruption to a meeting where people were trying to think of ways to help people like him. He insulted the people who were working for him, doing more than he would ever do on his own to change his situation. Mary is a sadder case. She is an old woman, though probably not as old as she looks. Years of drinking and being homeless have not been kind to her. She is usually sitting downtown in Bloomington with a sign, asking for spare change. She will sit there until she gets enough money for a drink, then disappear, returning again when the bottle is gone. Mary had everyone tears, was crying herself, while she told her stories about being homeless, being harassed by the cops, and being unable to find a job. She told how she and Richard aren't allowed in the library, the cafe at the Kroger Supermarket, and the downtown bus terminal, all hotspots for the homeless to hang out. She had people ready to boycott Kroger's. The problem is, Mary and Richard are most likely not looking for jobs. I do believe there are times they are bothered by the police for no reason, because they are well known to the police. The are not kicked out of those places for being homeless, they are kicked out of them for constantly being drunk and constantly causing a scene. Myself and the rest of the people who live in this shelter patronize those places on a daily basis, with little problems.
This is a deep problem. Addiction and homelessness go hand in hand. Most homeless people do not get drunk or high and cause a scene everyday. There are even some people who have other reasons for being homeless. Mental illness, abuse, loss of family, there are a lot of ways it can happen, but in my experience, addiction is the numero uno cause for a person to become homeless.
But I don't think that means you give up, that they are lost forever. People come around when they are ready. I was a lost person for the past fourteen years. When I wasn't locked in some type of institution, I was a hopeless dope fiend. Still, I think I have more to offer society then some supposed "Good People". A person is also more likely to turn around when they have something to turn to. A job and a home might make someone more receptive to recovery, and where do you place the value? One life saved is worth how much?
This is a broad, far-reaching topic, and I have run out of time. More later.
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