The resulting legal penalties compound other barriers, say the report's authors, since a criminal record makes it even harder for a homeless person to reemerge from destitution. As more formerly working- and middle-class families spiral toward homelessness, the irony of these “quality of life” ordinances grows starker.

But the criminalization of the homeless, who happen to be disproportionately people of color, isn't just an unfortunate sign of the times.

Perhaps one of the ugliest illustrations of the intersection of race, class and the law is on L.A.'s Skid Row, where a disproportionately Black population has not only been denied the dignity of shelter, but further displaced by the hand of the state.

Loitering and vagrancy laws have also been used to crack down other marginalized groups who seem to threaten to the dominant social order, like immigrant laborers and youth suspected of “gang” activity. Even on school grounds, urban students of color strain to learn under an intense police presence.

In any setting, criminalization is about asserting control—over the physical environment and the norms by which society judges individuals. The same paradigm sculpts the racial segregation of neighborhoods, entrenched in exclusionary zoning laws and the concentration of poverty.

The history of this low-grade territorial warfare extends back to the Jim Crow era. Seton Hall law professor Rachel Godsil explains that for generations, the government covertly enforced social divides by manipulating community space:

Beginning in the Jim Crow era and continuing into the late twentieth century, local officials have used their authority to eliminate public nuisances to enact various race-neutral vagrancy, anti-loitering, and most recently, antigang statutes that have had a vastly disproportionate impact upon people of color.... these ostensibly race-neutral statutes have often been focused upon criminalizing and excluding blacks from public spaces.

In a climate of economic anxiety, in which living spaces are being uprooted and class divisions collapsing, it's not surprising that lawmakers would race to draw deeper lines between “decent” residents and “nuisances.” The sight of the homeless on the streets reminds more privileged citizens of just how precarious the social hierarchy has become. Rather than confront that reality, it's easier just to make them disappear.

Image: Skid Row (mattlogelin via Flickr)