Homeless and Policed: The Racialized Policing of Urban Homeless Mobility

Faced with growing visibly homeless populations, urban areas have adopted laws and policies targeting the activities poor people do in public spaces. This book provides an easy-to-read and empirically-grounded analysis of how homeless persons experience various policing efforts. The author uses field interviews with homeless adults in a major Canadian city to challenge broken windows policing, anti-panhandling bylaws, informal police relocations, and campaigns that attempt to dissuade donations to panhandlers. The stories of homeless adults are used to extend the theoretical contributions of pivotal human geography, sociology, critical race, and criminology scholars. The analysis reveals the human consequences of anti-homeless efforts and articulates how the policing of homelessness produces mobility patterns that maintain business interests and reinforce the racialization of city space. SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF QUALITATIVE METHODOLOGY'S BEST DISSERTATION AWARD! This book will interest sociology, socio-legal, human geography, and critical criminology students alongside anti-poverty activists.

Joshua Freistadt received his PhD (2013) from the University of Alberta's Department of Sociology. His research covers public policy, program evaluation, criminology, family studies, and social justice. He has published peer-reviewed work using quantitative, qualitative, and philosophical approaches. He has been a Killam Doctoral Scholar and has held several Social Science and Humanities Research Council awards, including a postdoctoral fellowship with the University of Manitoba. He now works in the public sector in Saskatchewan and offers consulting services.