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I'll let this article from the current Crime & Delinquency speak for itself:
Kevin M. Fitzpatrick1 and Brad Myrstol
Crime & Delinquency 2011 57: 271 DOI: 10.1177/0011128708322941
Abstract
The authors of this article test hypotheses derived from Irwin’s rabble management thesis. The analysis uses data from 47,592 interviews conduc- ted with jailed adults in 30 U.S. cities as part of the Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring program. Clearly, homeless persons are overrepresented among those arrested and booked into local jails. Bivariate analysis support a fundamental assertion of the rabble management thesis: Homeless are jailed not because of their dangerousness but rather their offensiveness. Homeless arrestees are distinct from their domiciled counterparts in terms of sociodemographic characteristics, previous experiences with alcohol and drug treatment, mental health, criminal justice systems, and alcohol and drug use histories. In addition, homeless are less likely than domiciled arrestees to be jailed for felonies and violent crimes but more likely to be charged with maintenance and property crimes. Logistic regression models confirm these differences, even after other factors are controlled. A discussion of the policy implications of these findings follows.
What are the policy implications of the research reported here? What, if anything, is to be done? Irwin (1985) himself was skeptical of the prospects for meaningful reform of the jail. To begin, there is little that can be done to diminish the ranks of the rabble class because it is a product of structural inequalities endemic to our culture and economic system. And as long as there is a rabble class standing outside the conventions of “respectable” soci- ety, there will be efforts made to control and manage it. The bottom line, according to Irwin, is that the neither the public nor the policy makers want to see a change in the way that the rabble are treated: “The public does not want the rabble confined in a hotel; it wants them to suffer in jail” (p. 103; emphasis added) because of their disreputable social status and presumed dangerousness. According to Irwin, the jail functions as it does—to manage a community’s rabble—because that is what the public demands; a commu- nity gets the (punitive) jail it wants.
We are less pessimistic. We agree with Irwin’s thesis (1985) as an empir- ical matter—namely, that the jail, as an institution of social control, “was invented, and continues to be operated, in order to manage society’s rabble” (p. 2). As this study shows, the concept of rabble management accurately describes the functioning of local jails. We do not agree, however, with the assumption that the jail must serve a punitive purpose. If, as Irwin suggests, a community gets the jail it wants, all that is required to initiate reform is for the public to desire something different, to reorient the jail’s objectives. We suggest that because of its centrality to community social control efforts, the jail is structurally positioned as a strategic site for interventions aimed at helping the homeless and other constituencies of the underclass. Rather than as a locale to confirm the homeless’s status and replenish their ranks, the jail seems to be the ideal place to link the homeless (and other members of the rabble class) to resources that might aid in the amelioration of their condition.
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