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Sections of this document contain descriptions of violence, poverty, homelessness, systemic oppression, sexual assault, incarceration, and other sensitive topics. Reader discretion is advised.

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Without the privacy offered by housing, people experiencing homelessness are always more visible to others, including local police. This places them at increased risk of being charged for crimes like possession of a controlled substance, public intoxication, and loitering/trespassing. Possession of a controlled substance while housed is easily done in a discreet manner. Private Intoxication inside a house is less likely to result in an arrest compared to public intoxication, and people without access to housing lack access to privacy. Loitering inside one’s own house is called relaxing. Trespassing is not possible on one’s own property.[1] Even basic biological functions that are inherent to all human beings become a crime once access to restroom is revoked by homelessness. Recently the number of bathrooms that can be accessed through businesses has significantly reduced,[2] at times restrooms are not available for customers.[3] Once a person loses housing and by extension loses their access to a bathroom, whenever the need arises to urinate/defecate/vomit, they are forced into choosing between:

1. Find a somewhat hidden area in public where they can mitigate the risk of being discovered by anyone, while fearing the possibility of being sexually assaulted, arrest for indecent exposure, or similar potentially life altering situation; or

2. Soiling themselves and then having to find new clothing; or

3. Hold it while they search for a bathroom that they are allowed to use, which can only go on for an unknown period before they are forced into option 2.

This lack of access to privacy explains some of the disproportionate representations of people experiencing homelessness behind bars.

Without the accessibility offered by housing, keeping a job is dramatically more difficult, resulting in disproportionate rates of unemployment in unhoused populations.[4] Because the income from employment is expected of all adults (and some children) in the United States in order to access food, many people experiencing homelessness engage in illegal activity that they would not have considered if they were housed and considering the rise in municipalities in the US specifically criminalizing homelessness by implementing anti-vagrancy laws such as bans on car camping, bans of sitting in public spaces, bans on loitering, bans on panhandling.[5] Moreover, the desperation caused by homelessness creates a dynamic between otherwise law abiding people experiencing homelessness are more easily recruited by organized criminal operations to work as “dispensable” sources of inexpensive labor, who are easily replaced if they are arrested, wounded, or killed while engaging in criminal activity like drug trafficking, robbery, or sex workers for the profit of their employer/trafficker/abuser/etc.

Incarceration in the United States generally has a deleterious impact on the mental health of inmates,[6] however, New Mexico’s lack of resources upon reentry after being released from incarceration is known to contribute to a disproportionate number of formerly incarcerated people reoffending and being incarcerated again.[7]

While incarcerated, people without strong social connection to anyone can be entirely lost within the system. If the person was picked up by law enforcement without any witnesses present or without somehow informing others in the area, then news of their arrest may not spread. In such cases appointments that could not take place due to incarceration are reported as a “no-call no-show” which could impact access to services in the future. In the event that the incarcerated person has a case worker who is proactive in locating their client, they could be found on MDC’s arrest list, which is publicly available, but with such an increased workload being placed on case workers in recent years, the additional burden presented by a client’s incarceration may result in client progress stalling for the duration of their stay in jail.[8] In other areas of the state, like Rio Arriba County,[9] arrest lists or inmate rosters are unavailable to the public resulting in case workers losing clients with no explanation unless they call the corrections/detention center to inquire about their client.

Inmates are subject to the conditions found in the overcrowded and short-staffed jail.[10] Those going through opioid and/or benzodiazepine withdrawal while in the jail have died[11] because of the lack of adequate training and resources for medical staff on site.[12] In 2024 at least 6 inmates deaths were ruled as “overdoses”, though harm reductionists and community members have described medical complications that relate to withdrawal rather than overdose.[13] During the October 2024 Detention Facility Advisory Board meeting, Warden Smith confirmed that the understaffing at the jail has resulted in increased lockdowns where inmates are kept in their cells for longer periods of time, and that at times there is only 1 corrections officer overseeing 2 full pods. This has increased agitation among inmates and has seen an increased in altercations between inmates and each other as well as staff.[14]

The injunction which was established to prevent the City of Albuquerque from removing encampments that met certain criteria from November 1, 2023 to May 17, 2024 as a part of the Williams et al v. City of Albuquerque case. The injunction was retroactively vacated by Judge Allison in part due to its inability to be enforced, as evidenced by the repeated clearings by the city for the duration of the injunction.[18] In a statement that was made on the city’s website, which opened with the following sentences, “In the coming weeks, City leaders will evaluate how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Grants Pass v. Johnson will affect Albuquerque. The City appreciates more flexibility to enforce ordinances and will continue to protect the rights of unhoused individuals.”[19]

In the chart above, the blue columns depict the total number of bookings classified as “transient” at MDC for the first 8 months of 2024, with an overlapping red line that depicts the percentage of all bookings for each month that were classified as “transient.” The difference between the number of “transient”-classified bookings from May to July of 2024, and in that time the increased by 36.9%, and in that time, MDC’s total population increased to be nearly half “transient”.

Percent Increase was calculated using the following formulas (in order from right to left)

Percent Change in Total Bookings, Total Bookings, and in total “Transient” bookings from May to July 2024

Additional Reading

Dass, Anami (2024) On the Rights of People Experiencing Homelessness in Albuquerque

END NOTES

[1] With at least one notable exemption being when access to one’s own property has been revoked during situations such as a divorce or similar circumtances.

[2] Scott, Damon (2024) A dearth of public bathrooms is more than just an inconvenience City Desk ABQ (Pub. Aug 23, 2024; Acc. Oct 14, 2024)

[3] Lofholm (2024) When you gotta go, where to go? The crappy state of Colorado’s public restrooms. CO Sun (Pub. Apr 8, 2024; Acc. Oct 14, 2024) https://coloradosun.com/2024/04/07/colorado-disappearing-public-restrooms/

[4] US Interagency on Homelessness. Homelessness Data and Trends https://www.usich.gov/guidance-reports-data/data-trends

[5] Meyer & Reichert (2018) The Intersection of Homelessness & the Criminal Justice System IL Crim. Just. Information Authority. https://icjia.illinois.gov/researchhub/articles/the-intersection-of-homelessness-and-the-criminal-justice-system

[6] Quintz & Jones (2021) Research Roundup: Incarceration can cause lasting damage to mental health Prison Policy Initiative https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/05/13/mentalhealthimpacts/

[7] Torrey, Dailey, et al. (2017) Treat or Repeat: A State Survey of Serious Mental Illness, Major Crimes, and Community Treatment Office of Research & Public Affairs https://www.TreatmentAdvocacyCenter.org/treat-or-repeat

[8] McFadden et al (2024)  Safe Staffing and Workload Management in Social Work: A Scoping Review of Legislation, Policy and Practice The British Journal of Social Work, Volume 54, Issue 5, July 2024, Pages 2006–2026, https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcae017

[9] https://www.rio-arriba.org/departments_and_divisions/detention/inmate_search.html Attempted Access First on August 1, 2024 and again on September 30, 2024

[10] Ferguson & O’Connell (2022) BernCo MDC Analysis of the Jail Population  University of NM Center for Applied Research and Analysis https://isr.unm.edu/reports/2022/bernalillo-county-metropolitan-detention-center-analysis-of-the-jail-population,-june-30,-2022.pdf

[11] KOAT (2024) Recent MDC inmate death is jail’s fifth in six months June 16, 2024 https://www.koat.com/article/deaths-metropolitan-detention-center/43881006

[12] Freeman (2024) MDC: Inmate dies after showing signs of distress KRQE July 14, 2024 https://krqe.com/news/new-mexico/mdc-inmate-dies-after-showing-signs-of-distress/  

[13] NMHRC (2024) Drug Users Union interview August 15, 2024.

[14] Bernalillo County Detention Facility Advisory Board Meeting October 2024.

[15] Bernalillo County Manager (2024) MDC Data Dashboard Accessed September 11, 2024.

[16] City of Albuquerque Human Rights Board Meeting September 19, 2024 (Timestamp - 1:42:00) https://www.youtube.com/live/E4cKG76DP-0?si=MJPBAZYL5ROuS_m-&t=6145

[17] Brown, Scott (2022) Albuquerque Closes Coronado Park for All KRQE Albuquerque News Pub. Aug. 17, 2022. https://www.krqe.com/news/albuquerque-metro/city-officials-to-discuss-closure-of-coronado-park/

[18] Santa Cruz, Nicole (2024) Judge Lifts Order That Mandated Albuquerque Stop Throwing Away Homeless People’s Belongings. Propublica. Pub. May 23, 2024 https://www.propublica.org/article/judge-lifts-order-albuquerque-homeless-encampments

[19] City of Albuquerque (2024) City Leaders React to Grants Pass v. Johnson Ruling https://www.cabq.gov/mayor/news/city-leaders-react-to-grants-pass-v-johnson-ruling

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