Killings of Homeless Rise to Highest Level in a Decade

[babylonsister]

For 'the sport of it'? No words. :cry:


Killings of Homeless Rise to Highest Level in a Decade
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 18, 2010


WASHINGTON — Killings of homeless people have risen to their highest level in a decade, with 43 people killed last year and many more injured in often brutal attacks that are raising concerns among law enforcement officials, rights advocates and politicians, according to new data due to be released this week.

The rise in killings, from 27 in 2008, comes as many state and local governments are wrestling with the problem of what to do with the growing number of people forced onto the streets by economic woes. Some states and cities are moving to prosecute violence against the homeless as a hate crime, while others have taken a different tack by imposing tougher measures to prevent people from living on the streets in the first place.

Cases compiled and analyzed by the National Coalition for the Homeless, an advocacy group based in Washington, showed homeless people doused with gasoline and set on fire, attacked with bottles, metal pipes and baseball bats, and sprayed with pepper spray, often for the sport of it. An advance copy of the report was provided to The New York Times.

Because the F.B.I. does not track crimes against the homeless as part of its routine crime reporting, the data from the coalition is considered the most definitive study of the problem. A bill pending in Congress from Senator Benjamin L. Cardin, Democrat of Maryland, would require the F.B.I. to begin tracking data on crimes against the homeless, and Mr. Cardin plans to lead a hearing next month in the Senate on the country’s rising homeless problem, including violence against those living on the streets.

“The homeless are among our nation’s most vulnerable, but increasingly they find themselves the target of violent crime simply because they are homeless,” Mr. Cardin said. “This behavior should not and cannot be tolerated in our society.”

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/19/us/19homeless.html?ref=us

[MadMaddie]

1. The Right Wing rants against homeless and the unemployed

is turning this into a more deadly situation.

[CBR]

2. Sickening... nt

[KharmaTrain]

3. A Sign Of The Times...

The plight of our cities is hidden away...teevee crews rarely go into the bad neighborhoods and little is reported of the financial dire straits many of our inner cities are facing. We've heard a little about the desolation of Detroit, but it's not isolated to that city and it's hit the poor...black and white...very hard. Murders here in Chicago are an an all-time high as more unemployed and hopeless people take out their anger on one another and police departments (many operating on bare-bones) are unable to keep up with the rise in crime.

Add to this the expanding number of homeless...people who've been forced out of their houses by foreclosure and are creating a strain for government and private services. It's a silent and very personal suffering...not as sexy as some Fauxrage© over evil "A-rabs" or Mexicans dropping babies all over the desert.

Sad times indeed, Sis...

:hi:

[babylonsister]

4. Very very sad. Now the NYT has picked this up, but

do you think the m$m could spare a thought for these people, who could be any of us, at least in my world?

It's heart wrenching.


:hi:

[KharmaTrain]

5. It's Not "Sexy"

The teevee isn't there to inform, it's there to generate ratings. Chasing Lindsay Lohan or jumping up and down about "A-rabs" building a "mosque" generates the heat, the sizzle, the ratings. Poor people are depressing...their stories are so desolate people would prefer to look away than try to understand what's happened. Blaming these people for their plight gets the sizzle and insulates those who are this/close to being in a similar situation (that is until it happens to them...then they're forgotten as well). Homeless and poor people don't have cable, they don't generate ratings...they literally don't exist.