'Three months on the island was what his soul craved. Three months of assured board and bed, congenial company, safe from Boeras and bluecoats seemed to Soapy the essence of things desirable.' “The Cop and the Anthem,” by O Henry.
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"I kept reoffending to get put back inside as I couldn't get accommodation." --The words of a homeless man in England from the “Watchdog Report,” 2020.
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"We as police are familiar with that phenomenon." --Comment by Longview police Captain Branden McNew on the cases of homeless people committing crimes intentionally to get arrested in order to obtain a warm cell in prison.
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"Come and arrest me! I am a dangerous Criminal....." is not the usual cry anyone—never mind a policeman—might expect from someone lingering around the scene of a crime. You could be forgiven for thinking most people, including the homeless, would prefer to avoid rather than desperately seek prison. That is what crossed my mind almost fifty years ago when I was a 14-year-old school boy at a school in Scotland when the teacher made us read a story by O Henry titled 'The Cop and the Anthem.'
The story, published in 1906, centers on how a homeless man called Soapy commits inept petty crimes so that he can spend some time in a warm prison cell. He attempts to dine without paying in a restaurant, steals an umbrella, and hurls a brick to break a shop window. The reasons for Soapy's acts are made explicit. We read 'On the previous night 3 sabbath newspapers, distributed beneath his coat, about his ankles and over his lap, had failed to repulse the cold as he slept on his bench near the spurting fountain in the ancient square.' Soapy finds resorting to charity as very humiliating even thinking that 'the law was more benign than Philanthropy.' He reasons it is better to be a guest of the law because they don't 'meddle unduly with a gentlemen's private affairs.' In addition, three months in prison also offers pleasant company {O Henry, 25 Best Stories, 2014, Moscow: I.K.A R.}.
When I first read this short story I thought it was just nonsense. My verdict was ' unrealistic,' 'far-fetched,' and 'absurd'. Forty-six years passed. During much of this time, I had worked and encountered homeless people and I now understood that it was not O Henry who was naive but myself. There are people who do actually try to get arrested to spend a night in prison because it offers warmth, food, and a roof over your head.
Only I found that in Russia this was not the case because the conditions were so appalling and you could easily die in prison. As one Korean homeless person who was arrested and charged for murder in Moscow and then released because he was clearly innocent told me "You would not want your worse enemy to go through this experience."
Nevertheless, in America and Britain getting yourself arrested to get into jail can be what some homeless resort to. The police know this, homeless activists know this, and academic researchers from England also know this.
And the American author O Henry knew this as early as 1906!
In the 1990's I worked with some prisoners through the Gorbals Art Project via the Special Unit. A friend and I used to visit prisoners to discuss collaboration in art. During one visit I joked with a prisoner "You seem to be better fed than some people outside. Can you give me some food?" I was only joking, but the prisoner Toe Elliot started to offer me a lot more sandwiches after that comment.
It remains a deep indictment of how unjust the system is when you have some homeless, no matter the age, attempting to get arrested so as to find a warm place for the night.
Many of those people refuse to spend the night in shelters on the grounds they are unsafe, overcrowded, and uncomfortable—plus rife with very strict rules such as no smoking.
A recent article by the newspaper the “Guardian” in conjunction with “Investigate West,” has published an article about some striking cases in America. {See ‘Why Unhoused People in U.S. Are Choosing to Go to Jail: Kept Reoffending,’ by Wilson Criscione, in the “Guardian,” November 2, 2022.} The author interviewed one such homeless person, Chris Carver, 54, who is on the streets in Eastern Washington state.
Criscione cites other cases where a homeless man robbed his fourth bank in search of a long prison sentence and others, who like Soapy, casually break a shop window and calmly wait around for the police to come—instead of fleeing the scene of the crime—and simply let the police arrest them. The police are often exasperated by such cases. Some would prefer to deal with more serious criminal cases.
One policeman who spoke to Criscione sought to discourage such acts by warning, "You can't arrest your way out of homelessness."
Perhaps some readers might deeply distrust those newspapers on the basis reporters like to sensationalize stories by dwelling on the more exceptional and absurd aspects of homelessness. However, there has been proper and careful academic research in Britain to suggest that those cases do in deed exist even if they are exceptional. According to a Sheffield Hallan University survey of 400 homeless people living on the streets, in 2010 as many as 30 % of them had committed a minor crime with the intention of getting into prison.
More recent research by Watchdog in 2020 also came across such cases. For example, a man from Essex in the South of England told Watchdog he admitted that he was homeless every time he came out of prison which was at least 15 times. "I came out for about 2 months and if I ain't got nowhere then I just recall myself." Another homeless man told the Watchdog "I hate jail. I would never wish it on anyone but... it was more comfortable.”
As many as a fifth of those questioned claimed they had avoided being given bail or committed a prisonable offence as a means to resolving their housing problem.
Some people seem to get used to being in jail. Some prisoners can become institutionalized. Other prisoners may even see it as a normal rite of passage to get accepted into criminal gangs. I have met prisoners who told me that they can better women if they tell them about their time in prison. A certain kind of woman would regard such people who spend time in prison as 'real men.'
For some people who have been brought up in a certain ethos, imprisonment is not something to be ashamed of but a badge of honor. But with homeless people prison might really represent a refuge from the freezing cold which might kill them! Every year many homeless freeze to death from the cold. So there is a certain logic to getting into prison during the harsh winter. O Henry clearly explained the logic in his short story 'The Cop and the Anthem.'
So the truth in O Henry's short story appears to be vindicated. He wrote this story over a century ago. And how right he was!