Homeless arrests in L.A. ruled unconstitutional

A U.S. appeals court ruled on Friday that a Los Angeles city policy of arresting homeless people found sitting, lying or sleeping in public access areas is unconstitutional.

...

According to court documents about 12,000 homeless people live there and it is considered the highest concentration of homeless in the United States.

The majority ruling, written by Judge Kim McLane Wardlaw said the city's ordinance is one of the most restrictive on record, and because of the gap between available shelters and the number of homeless people, it's enforcement essentially criminalizes the very act of being homeless.

This is certainly a very welcome ruling. The practice that the court ruled on, however, is very sympromatic of the growing trend in the US of criminalizing whatever is viewed as undesirable - a frightening trend undermining the very foundation of the free society.

tags: homelessness  lapd  la  law