The Los Angeles Police Commission approved a new policy directing LAPD officers to treat homeless people with “compassion and empathy.”
The policy was meant to be a broad statement – a “philosophy more than it is the nuts and bolts,” [Cmdr Todd] Chamberlain recently told police commissioners. More specifics will come in future directives, he added.
But the new statement [unsurprisingly] was met with some skepticism from homeless advocates.
— Los Angeles Times
“Gary Blasi, a retired UCLA law professor who studies homelessness, said it would take more than a policy to improve interactions between officers and those living on the city’s streets. To do that, he said, the city should limit laws that unfairly criminalize situations involving homeless people — ‘so that the police are not involved in the first place.’”
More about homelessness in LA on Archinect:
LA's homeless population has increased by 11% in a single year
Homes of the homeless, seized: L.A. cracks down on free housing
To each their own home: A peek into the “HOME(less)” exhibition at USC
Los Angeles approves plans to tackle homelessness crisis, but funding is still unclear
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