Hacker News Reader

Comment by cschep | Hacker News Reader

where do the cops put them? you can't just remove people.

State sponsored forced labor camps https://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/countries/2017/271144... https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-belarus-iran-turkmenistan-hum...

Yes you can. If people support anti-homeless spikes these people will tolerate cops dealing with the homeless by giving them a free ride to the nearest forest in winter. Out of sight, out of mind.

Thing is, if this system works reliably and swiftly enough, it stops being so scary coz you run out of bums: people are deterred well enough from bumming. And you don't need to be as harsh to them as you say, just let everyone understand that spending nights in the street begging and drinking will not be tolerated. Plus of course, you need to have at least some social safety net to help those of them that can be helped, and they have it in Belarus, the country has an expansive system of redundant government-sponsored workplaces which functions almost as universal base income.

That system has been in place since Soviet era and works flawlessly. First there is a distribution center where these people are identified (fingerprints) to see if they've been there already. If they are disabled they are sent to so-called 'rehabilitation centers', which are not much guarded and it's a no-brainer to escape, and is in general not a good place to be. If they are able-bodied they are sent to work (in theory it is mandatory work, it is an administrative sentence, but they are almost not guarded there and can escape easily), if they are alcoholics or drug addicts they are sent to so-called LTPs, prison-type rehabs, from which it's harder to escape, and if they are mentally ill they are sent to prison-type mental institution, from which it's almost impossible to escape.

If someone is found out to get there, escape, and get there on and on, then it's a criminal offense (sounds like 'systematic homelessness') then they are sent to normal gulag-style forced labor camp (as in Russia, there are almost no prisons as such in Belarus, almost every institution which looks like prison is in fact a jail - people are kept there only prior to being sentenced).

That system sounds like well-balanced and fair to me, even if is not perfect. Being a (chronic, i.e. semi-permanent or permanent, as opposed to someone who just happened to get in a tough life situation) homeless, is an obvious crime against public order. Crime difficult to effectively punish without resorting to terror, and yet a crime. Belarusians have built a well-balanced, working system which lets good law-abiding citizens feel safe in the streets.

Im sorry but everything you write sounds like a verbatim quote from a fascist dystopia. Please consider why several people here have expressed bafflement at your position. Criminalization of homelessness, as but one example, is a rather abhorrent idea.

Or consider how easily you could end up “useless” for society: if you get cancer, or into a car accident, would it be ok for society to just let you die? After all, the treatment is certain to cost far more than the taxes you would eventually pay after recovery.

I also feel quite safe here in the streets of Berlin, and part of that is that nobody is going around dividing people into useful and useless.

I don't agree that homelessness and bumming are same things. A law-abiding citizen who got evicted from his rental place due to unemployment and has to live with his friend on even sleeping in his car while figuring things out is one thing, and yes you have to be a Nazi to put him to jail for that. But wandering around the town dirty, drunk, stoned, smelly, begging and looking for what to steal is a totally different story. First is an economic/social issue which society has to constructively address: how to build a workable safety net which eliminates or minimizes such cases without bankrupting the public funds. Second is strictly a law enforcement problem, which should be solved in the interest of law-abiding citizens, not himself: remove this person out of public sight and make as sure as possible that his behavior will be fixed, without burdening public funds too much.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com