Discuss the controversy surrounding the laws regulating the behavior of homeless and other street people. What is the argument in support of these laws and what is the argument against these laws?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Enforcing the laws regulating the behavior of homeless and other street people generates controversy because these laws seem to target the poorest and weakest members of the community to provide for the comfort and convenience of better-off residents. But James Q. Wilson defends these laws, noting that the special competence of courts lies in defining and applying rights; courts typically hear the cases of "an individual beggar, sleeper, or solicitor.". Such an individual rarely poses a threat to anyone, "and so the claims of communal order often seem, in the particular case, to be suspect or overdrawn.". But the effects on a community of many such individuals taking advantage of the rights granted to an individual (or often, as the court sees it, an abstract depersonalized individual) are qualitatively different from the effects of a single person.