The nature and frequency of homeless contacts with the police

Bibliographic Data

ID20408796
AuthorsDaniel Reinhard (0000-0003-2067-8962, Boulder Police Department, Boulder, Colorado, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume33
Issue1
Pages210-219
Publication date2024-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Social Distress and the Homeless (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1053-0789 • E-ISSN: 1573-658X
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10530789.2023.2170203
OpenAlexW4319790715
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited35

This study assesses differences between citizen and police initiated homeless-involved dispatch incidents, as well as the resulting police reports. This is accomplished by analyzing dispatch data and police reports identified as involving homeless individuals in a mid-sized city in the central United States from 2020 to 2021. Altogether 12,843 dispatch incidents and 1,762 (13.72%) reports are analyzed. This study found 93% of documented police contacts to be citizen initiated. Incidents that did not involve the homeless were substantially more likely to be officer initiated than homeless-involved incidents. Significant differences are found on the basis of initiation type and offense type for nine of the 18 offense categories. Police initiated incidents are more likely to produce reports about failure to appear or comply, homeless encampments, and drugs or alcohol. Citizen initiated incidents are more likely to produce reports about trespassing, assault or menacing, and theft or shoplifting. The results support prior research (Herring, 2019 Herring, C. (2019). Complaint-oriented policing: Regulating homelessness in public space. American Sociological Review, 84(5), 769–800. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122419872671[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) and suggest that care should be taken regarding assumptions about why officers contact the homeless. Given the non-criminal nature of many citizen generated incidents, some support exists for an alternative response to address loitering, suspicious persons, or other non-serious and non-criminal homeless incidents

Complaint · Criminology · Officer · Political science · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Psychology

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