Prosecuting homeless beggars seems pointless
Let me tell you a story about one particularly tough point in my life.
I was a tertiary student and had recently moved into a flat with some other young people. Until I landed a part-time job I had only my $150 per week student loan living costs payment to survive on, which covered my rent and power and left me around $20 per week for everything else.
As I didn’t have enough for petrol, my car had been unused for weeks and was parked in the driveway. Probably a good thing, really, as my warrant and rego had both lapsed and I clearly couldn’t afford to renew them just yet.
Money was tight, but I was getting by in large part thanks to free bus travel for students. Until.
Until I got a letter in the mail, postmarked with the local council’s logo. A parking fine. Four hundred dollars’ worth, due to being parked on a CBD street with no warrant and rego.
Cue panic attack. I felt like I was going to pass out. How was I supposed to pay a fine totalling close to three weeks’ worth of income? And how the heck did I get a fine in the first place when my car hadn’t been driven in so long?
Panicked and confused, I called the council’s customer service centre and put that exact question to them. How?
The woman on the phone, while clearly sympathetic to my distressed state, was nevertheless firm in her answer – there was no mistake. My car had been parked in a public parking space with no warrant or rego on the date and time published in the letter. No doubt about it.
I had no idea who used my vehicle. But as the owner, the responsibility for payment of the fine ultimately landed at my feet, even if I wasn’t the person driving the vehicle.
So, what’s a poor student to do? I chose the coward’s option. I did nothing.
That’s right, nothing. I couldn’t pay it, so figured that was that, and waited for my fate to come to me.
Eventually the Ministry of Justice sorted out a payment plan with me and I paid it all back.
It’s embarrassing looking back on it now. Who does that, just lets a fine go unpaid until they’re forced into action?
People with no other options, that’s who.
And when you’ve got no other options, a part of you just thinks, “Stuff it, what’s the worst they can do, fine me more? They can’t take what I don’t have.”
It’s these kind of life experiences that give me sympathy for the “bad” decisions people make when they’re poor. It does stuff to your brain.
And so, when I saw the news that a homeless man had been prosecuted for begging in Rotorua, I was incredulous. What’s the point?
George Mohi, 52, was charged by police for standing in the middle of a busy intersection with his unleashed dog and holding a sign. A guilty plea was entered on his behalf and he was fined $35..
The summary of facts relating to the incident said Mohi was at significant risk of injury or death to himself from moving vehicles.
And court documents indicated at least two others would face similar charges.
According to the police’s description of events, Mohi would indeed have been in an unsafe position, and moving him from danger was, in my opinion, the right thing to do.
But safety wasn’t their only motive.
The police confirmed they are also using these charges more frequently in an attempt to improve Rotorua’s reputation.
Let’s be real, here. No one likes to see beggars around our streets. Surely we can all agree on that, whether that dislike stems from feeling unsafe or from loathing the inequalities that led to the begging.
But, seriously, what’s the point, in my view, in prosecuting a (presumably) destitute homeless person?
It seems clear to me that homeless people beg because, being homeless, they don’t have a heck of a lot of other options.
And, unlike with a poor student, you can’t exactly skim a homeless person’s pay cheque because they don’t have one. Moreover, I believe it’s hardly a deterrent to prosecute someone who’s already living on the street. They’re already living the worst-case scenario.
If we want to stop begging, the only effective way to do so, in my opinion, is to stop the need for begging.
To deter people from certain behaviour, the deterrents need to be effective and the consequences enforceable – and I’d argue my view that prosecuting the homeless achieves neither of those things.
Move them on? Sure. Get them help? Even better. But taking literal beggars to court, where they be fined, seems, in my view, both pointless and counterintuitive.
Being poor should not be a crime.
Sonya Bateson is a writer, reader and crafter raising her family in Tauranga. She is a Millennial who enjoys eating avocado on toast, drinking lattes and defying stereotypes. As a sceptic, she reserves the right to change her mind when presented with new evidence.