Sociology Publications
Document Type
Report
Publication Date
9-1-2009
Abstract
Due to their vulnerability on the streets, it has been frequently reported that the homeless experience high rates of harassment and criminal victimization. And yet, reports of such victimization are rarely made to the police. Failure to report crime has often been conceptualized as a problem for law enforcement, policy makers and social scientists (Skogan 1984). We conceptualize the failure to notify authorities as to the experience of criminal victimization by homeless men, women and youth as a problem directly linked to their status as ‘lesser citizens’, individuals and groups who are more often viewed as the criminal element to be protected from, than as citizens who need the protection of the state and its mechanisms of justice (Huey 2007; Hermer 2007). What we explore within the present study is a possible avenue for reconstituting marginalized crime victims as citizens equally worthy of access to justice.
Notes
This technical report was produced as a result of a grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, under their Homelessness and Diversity Initiatives program.
A revised version of the report was uploaded on Nov. 20, 2009.