The UN Human Rights Committee says the U.S. should stop criminalizing homeless people for being homeless.
Photo Credit: CBS New York; Screenshot / YouTube.com
March 31, 2014
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Jerome Murdough, 56, a mentally ill homeless veteran, was just
trying to stay alive during a New York City cold snap when he thought he
found his spot: a stairwell leading to a roof in a Harlem public
housing project. But that desperate act set in motion a nightmare ride
through New York's criminal justice system that would end with Murdough
dying of heat stroke in a Riker's Island jail cell. New York officials
now say the system failed Murdough every which way.
When he was
discovered, he should have been offered shelter. When he was arraigned,
he should not have been slapped with $2,500 bail. When, unable to make
bail, he ended up in jail, Murdough, because he was on medication for a
mental condition, should have been monitored every 15 minutes, not left
unwatched for at least four hours. It was during that untended time that
Murdough, as an official told the Associated Press, "basically baked to
death."
Now, as New York officials discuss the "tragedy" of last
month and scapegoat one Riker's Island guard for Murdough's death —
suspending him for 20 days — the United Nations has taken notice.
Murdough is just the latest statistic in a series of needless deaths of
homeless people while under arrest for "crimes" related to being
unhoused, such as loitering or trespassing.
The U.N. Human Rights
Committee in Geneva on Thursday condemned the United States for
criminalizing homelessness, calling it "cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment" that violates international human rights treaty obligations.
It also called upon the U.S. government to take corrective action,
following a two-day review of U.S. government compliance with a human
rights treaty ratified in 1992.
"I'm just simply baffled by the
idea that people can be without shelter in a country, and then be
treated as criminals for being without shelter," said Sir Nigel Rodley,
chairman of the committee in closing statements on the U.S. review. "The
idea of criminalizing people who don't have shelter is something that I
think many of my colleagues might find as difficult as I do to even
begin to comprehend."
The Committee called on the U.S. to abolish
criminalization of homelessness laws and policies at state and local
levels, intensify efforts to find solutions for homeless people in
accordance with human rights standards and offer incentives for
decriminalization, including giving local authorities funding for
implementing alternatives and withholding funding for criminalizing the
homeless.
Those recommendations run counter to the current trends
in the nation. Laws targeting the homeless—loitering laws that ban
sleeping or sitting too long in one public spot, or camping in parks
overnight—have become increasingly common in communities throughout the
country as homelessness has skyrocketed.
The National Law Center
on Homelessness & Poverty (NLCHP), a D.C.-based advocacy
organization which monitors laws that criminalize homeless people and
litigates on behalf of poor people regularly conducts reviews of cities
criminalizing homelessness and finds more and more laws banning such
activities as sitting or lying in public places with each new survey.
"We
welcome the Committee's Concluding Observations and call on our
government to take swift action to solve homelessness with homes, not
jails and prisons,” said Maria Foscarinis, the NLCHP executive director,
in a statement. The NLCHP had submitted a report to the U.N. Committee
for review.
Paul Boden, executive director of the Western Regional
Advocacy Project, an umbrella organization of advocacy groups in the
Western U.S. that is hoping states will sign onto a Bill of Rights for
homeless people, said that more and more homeless people are being
arrested, prosecuted and killed for actions relating to their poverty.
"The
U.S. seems to talk a much bigger rhetoric than it practices," he said.
"At the U.N. level, we have a horrible growing record of supporting
repressive regimes, and as we bring our neo-liberal policies to America,
we're doing the same thing here."
On March 16, a homeless man in
Albuquerque was shot and killed by police who were attempting to arrest
him for illegal camping. James Boyd, 38 years old with a history of
mental illness, was shot dead by Albuquerque police while his back was
turned after a three-hour stand-off. Boyd, armed with a small knife,
appeared to be surrendering when he was gunned down. The incident was
caught on one of the officer's helmet-cams and has been posted on
YouTube by at least half a dozen news outlets.
Albuquerque police
officials had concluded that the shooting was justified, but the FBI has
since announced it is launching an investigation into the incident and
said it is already probing 23 officer-involved shootings in Albuquerque
since 2010. On Sunday, hundreds of people marched through Albuquerque to
protest the number of police shootings in the city, a day-long event
that ended when police fired tear gas into the crowd.
