Full title: Aporophobia, homelessness and sentencing
Year: 2022
Course: Master in Criminal Law
Direction: Ana Isabel Pérez Cepeda
Collaborator: Isabel García Domínguez
Collaborating association: Área de Bienestar Social de la Dipulación de Salamanca
Students:
- Norma Jacqueline Portillo Morel
- Nicole Andrea Ripe Vargas
- Janet Alejo Pérez
Summary:
Information was extracted from more than 100 judgments concerning homeless people. The main objective was to analyse the processes of criminalisation of poverty and criminal victimisation for aporophobic reasons suffered by homeless people in Castilla y León. To this end, information was extracted from the sentences by means of a questionnaire and the content was analysed. Case studies were also carried out. Preliminary results show that there are more sentences dealing with the criminalisation of poverty than with aporophobic victimisation. In this sense, the crimes most frequently committed by homeless people are property crimes, often in competition with other types of crime. Only some of them have been committed as a result of their situation of poverty. The most common penalties imposed were imprisonment and fines. On the contrary, homeless people are often victims of crimes related to life, physical integrity and dignity, and the aporophobic motivation has been corroborated in some of the sentences recovered. As a main conclusion, it highlights the need to fight against the under-reporting of crimes suffered by homeless people and to find an adequate legal response for people in extreme poverty who commit petty crimes.
The preliminary results of this report were presented by Nicole Andrea Ripe Vargas at the International Congress Aporophobia and Criminal Law, held on 28-29 April 2022 in Salamanca.