Nashville Program targets Homeless for Arrests
The Nashville police are going after a group of people who routinely get arrested. Known as Chronic Booking Offenders, these people are those who are frequently arrested and seen as a burden on the jail, the police, and the taxpayers. The problem is that most of those designated as chronic offenders are homeless and battling severe addiction. While their arrests and subsequent jail sentences may get them off the streets for a longer period, some are saying the program does nothing to lessen the problem in the long run.
Under the new program, someone who is seen repeatedly in the jail, will be labeled a Chronic Booking Offender, with this label written boldly across their case file. When they are charged, usually with a misdemeanor “quality of life” charge, the prosecutor and judge will see this label and push for a harsher sentence, sometimes sending the defendant to jail for several weeks or months on a charge that would normally only warrant a slap on the wrist and a long night in booking.
Deputy Chief Damian Huggins created the program to save the resources of the county and to keep chronic offenders from coming back. He found that 46 people were responsible for 3% of all arrests in Davidson County last year. The program specifically targets people who were arrested 17 times or more in 2010.
Most of these arrests are for things like public intoxication, littering, loitering and disorderly conduct. But what may have warranted an 8 hour nap in jail before can now lead to a few months.
Huggins says the program is working. In 2010, the men on the chronic offender list were arrested 1,378 times. In 2011, that number is down 46% so far. This year, those men have spent 1,770 in jail. Last year at this time, that number was 2,016. So far, Huggins calculates the savings to taxpayers at $337,000.
Many people have a problem with the new program because many the arrests are due to alcohol and addiction, something that can’t be treated or stopped with a few weeks in jail. Homeless advocates are also upset that the program unfairly targets the homeless as criminals instead of working with them to find solutions to the problems that keep them on the streets.
The homeless population in Nashville has been a problem for quite some time, with the city fighting the presence and visibility of this population in a variety of ways. Criminalizing them and giving them harsher sentences is just another option. After all, Huggins is also the one who offered homeless people one-way bus tickets out of the city.
Regardless of your living situation or any problems you might have with drugs or alcohol, you deserve to be treated fairly in court. If you are facing criminal charges, contact us today for a consultation on your case.
