Incarceration is alternative to life on streets for homeless

JEFFERSONVILLE, Ind. (AP) — Samuel pointed to tattoos on his forearms and chest to count how many times he’s been incarcerated in Clark County jail.

He has three.

The 26-year-old has been arrested five or six times, for charges varying from theft to operating while intoxicated. But living on the streets with a drug addiction makes staying out of trouble a constant battle, he said.

“I always wind up in jail over it, doing something stupid, and I’m tired of going to jail,” said Samuel, who was just released recently. “I want to do something with my life.”

To complicate matters, Samuel doesn’t have an ID. He can’t get a new one for three months because his driver’s license is suspended, so he also can’t apply for food stamps or public housing.

Samuel said if he had a home, he wouldn’t have to loiter in public places and have the police called on him.

That’s how he landed in jail this past stint. He said he wasn’t in a Jeffersonville park for 15 minutes when someone called the police. They ran his information and found that he had a warrant for arrest.

“I tend to get in trouble when I don’t have something to do,” he said.

Incarceration and homelessness are mutual risk factors, researchers say.

Homelessness is 7.5 to 11.3 times more prevalent among inmates across U.S. jails than the nation’s general population, according to a 2013 study published by the National Health Care for the Homeless Council.

Researchers estimate 25 percent to 50 percent of homeless people in the U.S. have a history of incarceration.

Police officers patrolling Southern Indiana’s streets and the correctional officers who work inside the jails in Clark and Floyd counties say helping the area’s homeless population requires an extra level of resources and that efforts are often futile.

Law enforcement agencies throughout the counties, however, say they are committed to helping this marginalized segment of the community.

Clark County Sheriff Jamey Noel said that a relatively high number of services for the homeless in Jeffersonville — Haven House, Jesus Cares at Exit 0 and community kitchens — can serve as a double-edged sword. Homeless people from surrounding counties are attracted to this area to receive the services, Noel said, but when those services are not acquired for one reason or another, those people can end up incarcerated.

“In Clark County, the jail is a dumping ground for the mentally ill, and it is a dumping ground for the homeless,” Noel said.

He said it is the community’s duty to help the homeless and poor, but when an area becomes known for providing services to the less fortunate, sometimes the less fortunate attracted to the area are sex offenders, violent offenders and those wanted on warrants.

“We are flipping the bill for it at the Clark County jail,” he said. “Some communities kick that problem down the road. They don’t want homeless people or vagrants around.”

Mark Palmer, chief of the Clarksville Police Department, said he understands that when only one community in a larger region provides services to the homeless, the community’s services can become overwhelmed.

“When you have the programs in place, and they may not be large-scale, they can only help so many people, but when people hear Clark County has these facilities in place to help, it draws people,” Palmer said. “The services are not set up to handle that volume of people.”

Noel said the jail staff will treat inmates at the jail who suffer from a mental illness, but that is often a temporary fix.

“We are treating (offenders) when they are in jail, but when they leave the jail, they don’t take their medications and problems occur that can result in being arrested and repeating the cycle,” he said. “We want to break that cycle. We don’t want to be in the business of just housing bodies.”

Palmer can relate to the frustration faced by Noel, who oversees the jail.

“Putting someone in jail is not helping anybody. It is not helping the system,” he said. “The jail is already overcrowded. The person going to jail is not getting a long-term solution. They are only getting a Band-Aid on the problem.”

A small percentage of homeless people will purposefully commit crimes only to be jailed for the shelter, food and place to sleep, according to various area law enforcement officials. Not surprisingly, they said it is a phenomenon that occurs more often during winter months than warmer times of the years.

It’s something that Charles “Moses” Greer, Jeffersonville, has seen. He’s homeless off and on for about a decade.

“A lot of people are happy to get out (of jail), but we have some people that have nowhere to go and they need help, and they can’t get the help they really need, and that’s where they go (jail),” said Greer, who added the last time he was in jail was January 2014. “Especially in the winter time — a lot of them do that in the winter time, just to get (out of the elements).”

Floyd County Sheriff Frank Loop said homeless people have literally come through the lobby of the jail for the purpose of being incarcerated.

“They come right in the front door, and they will raise enough hell to draw attention to them, and they end up here,” he said.

Loop said some homeless inmates will then intentionally extend their sentences at the Floyd County Jail by delaying court proceedings that would result in their release, such as asking for a new public defender to slow the progression of their case or taking an extended time to accept a plea agreement.

“If the weather is bad out, they are not going to be in any hurry to leave if they don’t have any place to go,” he said.

Samuel — who has had several bouts of homelessness mostly stemming from his addiction — said he would rather serve his time in jail than be on probation.

“When I went to jail this time, I was mad that I went but I was like, ‘Take me. I ain’t got nowhere to go. I’ve been sleeping outside for months. Please take me somewhere where I got a mat and a warm blanket — please. And three square meals a day, and I ain’t gotta walk all over the damn earth,‘” he said.

Loop said there is lack of services in Floyd County to direct homeless people to upon their discharge.

“We really don’t have any facilities in Southern Indiana, other than the Haven House (Williams Emergency Shelter), to deal with people that are homeless,” he said.

He said because of the shortage of facilities and his own limited personnel, the way FCSD officers can assist a homeless inmate at the time of their release is referring them to area services and attempting to make contact with family members who could take their relative in their home.

Scottie Maples, a CCSO detective, said jail officials in Clark County attempt to help the jail’s population by connecting them with services, such as Jesus Cares at Exit 0, before they are released from the jail.

And like other officers, Maples said his department encounters the same homeless people in and out of the jail.

“It seems like we see the same faces,” Maples said, adding that officers are some familiar with some of the homeless population they even learn their nicknames. “We don’t see a lot of new cases.”

While the Clark County jail attempts to direct homeless inmates to programs that provide services, individuals often decline the services, at least for long periods of time.

“We have several regulars and they know about the programs. They know about the Haven House. They know about Exit 0,” Maples said. “They just don’t utilize them.”

Source: News and Tribune, http://bit.ly/1A54dIc

Information from: News and Tribune, Jeffersonville, Ind., http://www.newsandtribune.com