zlacker

>>gruseo+(OP)
In the United States, the problem started with the war on drugs. The increasing privatization of the prison system made crime a business opportunity, which in turn lead to more things being criminalized.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/54/US_...

But that's not all; prison labor is now used as cheap labor to compete with foreign countries, instituting a new age of under-the-radar slavery.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwT6CisM0mU

The more you look at this cyclic process, the more disturbing it becomes.

>>macemo+65
Another major part of the problem is that we no longer institutionalize most of the mentally ill (also a phenomenon starting around 1960-70). Many of them become homeless, and a few commit crimes.

>>yummyf+66
America has never had a working mental health infrastructure; we stopped institutionalizing people because American mental institutions in the 40s were about the most horrible things you can imagine:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1220177...

I think the history of our neglect as a society of the mentally ill has little to tell us about crime and a lot to tell us about the homeless underclass in America.

To digress: I just visited DC again a couple weeks ago. You go in a public bathroom right outside the Washington Monument and there are big signs next to the sinks that say "NO BATHING". I felt ashamed.

>>jberry+8b
>there are big signs next to the sinks that say "NO BATHING". I felt ashamed.

Sorry, I'm not clear what you're ashamed of? That there are people that would want to wash in the sinks or that they are not allowed to?

I don't think it would be a fair description of all homeless people to say they belong to an underclass.