Who Is More Dangerous? Comparing the Criminality of Adult Homeless and Domiciled Jail Inmates: A Research Note

• Author: Matt DeLisi
• Published date: 01 February 2000
• Date: 01 February 2000
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X00441006
• Subject Matter: Journal Article

InternationalJournalofOffenderTherapy and Comparative Criminology

CriminalityofAdultHomeless

Who Is More Dangerous?

Comparing the Criminality

of Adult Homeless and Domiciled

Jail Inmates: A Research Note

Matt DeLisi

Abstract: The criminality of 100 homeless and 100 domiciled jail inmates was compared.

Homelessjailinmatesweresignificantly more likely than domiciled jail inmates to be mentally

ill, to be arrestedfor nuisance offenses, to have more extensive criminal histories, and to have

prior arrests for use of weapons, drugs, and alcohol. Suggestions for processing homeless

offenders are given.

Homeless people in the United States are a source of frequent and varied socio-

logical inquiry. Researchers are ideologically torn overwhether the homeless are

worthy or unworthy of public sympathy and support (Wright, 1988b). A classical

schoolargument (e.g., Cesare Beccaria andJeremy Bentham) is thatthe homeless

arerational, free-thinking actors who have no onebut themselvesto blamefor per-

sonal inadequacies such as alcoholism, drug addiction, unemployment, tran-

siency,and mental illness. The homeless, according to a classical perspective, are

a reproachable group of derelicts. Conversely, a positivist school argument is that

the homeless are a disparate group of unfortunate, indigent people whose social

conditionis attributable to macro-societalforces such as a changingeconomy,not

personal inadequacies. The homeless, according to a positivist perspective, are

unfortunate victims of social forces.

Investigations of homeless criminality generally occupy four categories: (a)

whether the homeless involvement in the criminal justice system is legitimate or

the result of police harassment (Aulette & Aulette, 1987; Irwin, 1985), (b)

whether a real relationship exists between mental illness and homeless criminal-

ity(Belcher,1988; Benda, 1987; Simons,Whitbeck, & Bales, 1989; Snow,Baker,

Anderson, & Martin, 1986; Wright, 1988a), (c) whether a relationship exists

between drug and alcohol abuse and homeless criminality (Snow, Baker, &

Anderson, 1989), and (d) whether homelessness itself is criminogenic (McCarthy &

Hagan, 1991, 1992).

International Journal of Offender Therapy and ComparativeCriminology, 44(1), 2000 59-69

2000 Sage Publications, Inc.

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