[sumy23]

It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone strung out on heroin loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime. This person is well within their rights to use the public space. But in many cases, people like this form a small minority that ruins the public space for everyone. Discouraging this type of person is actually maximizing the utility of public space.

[thaumasiotes]

> Technically, being high on heroin in a public place isn’t a crime.

That's hard to believe. If it's apparent to anyone else, it will be a crime in a few different ways. For example:

> A person is guilty of disorderly conduct if, with purpose to cause public inconvenience, annoyance or alarm or recklessly creating a risk thereof, he or she:

> (1) Engages in fighting or threatening, or in violent or tumultuous behavior; [or]

> (2) Makes unreasonable noise or offensively coarse utterance, gesture or display, or addresses abusive language to any person present

( https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/25/11.441 , apparently a rule of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but the crime exists everywhere with somewhat variable definitions.)

[repiret]

Do you really think people stung out on heroin do so "with purpose to cause public inconvenience"?

That said, chances are most jurisdictions have some variation of "dunk in public" that isn't as particular about the intoxicant. Even so, the criminal justice system hasn't proven itself to be an especially good solution to substance abusers.

[thaumasiotes]

> Do you really think people st[r]ung out on heroin do so "with purpose to cause public inconvenience"?

No, but as you'll note that is not an element of the crime. It suffices to act in a way that "recklessly creates a risk of public inconvenience, annoyance, or alarm".

[sumy23]

I wouldn’t say heroin addicts act with purpose to cause inconvenience. They do cause inconvenience, but that’s not the purpose of their actions.

[thaumasiotes]

How is that a response to my comment? Why would it matter whether they have the purpose of causing inconvenience? It's not an element of the crime.

[uoaei]

Because that's the language of the very statutes cited above.

[Brigand]

There is an OR in the statement, ie purpose is only one part of the condition.

[asveikau]

I think a guy on heroin in a park could easily not be noticed. This exact scenario happens harmlessly in major cities. You're overestimating the danger of happening to be in the same park as that person.

[lotsofpulp]

The needles they leave lying around are noticed and harmful.

[asveikau]

Not every heroin user in a park leaves their needles behind, just as not every person who eats lunch in a park leaves litter behind.

[MichaelZuo]

The standard practice on HN is to take the most charitable interpretation of the parent.

[pshirshov]

> It really depends on the specific situation. Public space is for everyone’s enjoyment. Unfortunately, some people take advantage of their right to the space in a way that detracts from everyone. Take a park for example. Typically, a great place to take your kids. However, if someone $PROPERTY loiters in the park, it suddenly becomes a much worse place for everyone else. Technically, being $PROPERTY in a public place isn’t a crime. This person is well within their rights to use the public space. But in many cases, people like this form a small minority that ruins the public space for everyone. Discouraging this type of person is actually maximizing the utility of public space.

PROPERTY={high on heroin | fat | ugly | gay | disabled | autistic | ... }

[r3muxd]

Can you really compare being strung out on heroin with being ugly, though?

[pshirshov]

Yeah, in my country of origin exactly this rhetoric is used against every minority, from gay people to disabled people. Yeah, they intentionally make places _inaccessible_ for disabled and push autistic children out of schools.

[pgt]

By...removing the park?

[sandworm101]

If you remove a vehicle lane then traffic is reduced. Pull up the sidewalks and loitering pedestrians disappear. Remove the parks and there will be fewer people sleeping in parks. Under-inclusive metrics generally lead to poor decisions.

[uoaei]

Vehicles are the only things that use traffic lanes.

Pedestrians are the only things that use sidewalks.

Heroin addicts are not the only things that use parks, unless your neighborhood is very disjointed and sad.

[uoaei]

I would really prefer to humanize those people and develop systems in place so they can find the help they need, rather than having sleeping in what is probably the safest possible place they have access to, from a personal safety standpoint.

If it makes you feel better about your own society that society would rather hide its flaws from public view than actually solve them, find solace in the fact that the blight and detritus you identify would also be solved if those people were given the treatment they deserve.