Cheyenne PD Turns Up the HEAT on the Homeless

This week, the City of Cheyenne launched its new program entitled, “Operation HEAT” (Homeless Empowerment Action Team), with the stated goal of empowering the homeless, transient population living on the streets of Cheyenne to become law-abiding and productive citizens. The program will increase coordination among law enforcement, the courts and the COMEA House private shelter.

Here’s how Operation HEAT is supposed to work: A Cheyenne Police officer along with a COMEA House counselor will team up to make contact with homeless individuals who are violating the law to explain to them their three options:

1) Enter the COMEA House shelter and follow the case management program
2) Become law abiding or leave the jurisdiction
3) Be arrested and face criminal penalties

Emphasizing a recent increase in public intoxication citations of transients in the downtown Cheyenne area, the program aims to reduce these citations by 30% over the next year. At a press conference announcing the start of Operation HEAT last Wednesday, Cheyenne Police Chief Brian Kozak stated, “Whether it’s trespassing, panhandling or threatening people, those people will be held accountable through the court system and will receive enhanced sentences to go to jail. That’s the program.” Defendants who are arrested more than once for the same type of offense within six months will be sentenced to a minimum of thirty days in jail.

Here at the ACLU of Wyoming, we are deeply concerned that Operation HEAT does little address the root causes of homelessness, and will likely burden our criminal justice system which results in higher law enforcement costs, courts costs and jail costs. A culture should be measured by how we treat those that are most vulnerable, and this is not saying anything good about our culture here in Cheyenne.

Many cities have found that criminalizing homelessness is much more costly than developing long-term solutions for society’s most vulnerable, the homeless, who live in extreme poverty. What’s more is that homeless folks often times have a mental illness, disability or are veterans of the armed services.

Despite claims from the Cheyenne Police Department that Operation HEAT is designed to divert people from the criminal justice system, this is, in fact, exactly what the program does. When a city enforces a law that imposes criminal penalties on a homeless person for engaging in necessary life activities, such as sleeping in public, that law could violate that person's Eight Amendment right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment.

Criminalization of homelessness tends to be one of the most expensive “solutions” to the problem. According to a study published in 2011 by the National Law Center of Homelessness and Poverty, cities spend an average of $87 dollars a day to jail a person, compared to $28 per day for shelter. Robin Zimmer, executive director of the COMEA House shelter in Cheyenne stated at last week’s press conference that the shelter has approximately 70 residents and is already near capacity. And while she did point out that they are seeking funds to add 12 more beds, the shelter is almost always full. A recent analysis estimated that there are approximately 500 homeless individuals living in Cheyenne. Even with added beds, it’s tough to see how COMEA plans to accommodate the influx of cliental as a result of HEAT.

When homeless shelters are closed or full, it is terribly unfair, and possibly unconstitutional, to impose fines and jail sentences on persons who have no choice but to sleep outdoors. Furthermore, laws that restrict or penalize begging may raise free speech concerns, as courts have found begging to be protected speech under the First Amendment. Most importantly, incarcerating homeless individuals at the expense of taxpayer’s dollars is counter-productive and does not address the underlying problem of homelessness in our community. People who are homeless should be afforded all the rights and protections guaranteed to all people by our Constitution, and should not be treated as criminals simply as a result of their misfortune.

Can I See Your ID? How Voter ID Laws Are Undermining Our Democracy

This week marks the forty-seventh anniversary of the Voting Rights Act (VRA). The VRA was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson to ensure that states did not discriminate against certain classes of voters that had traditionally been disfranchised. The VRA came into effect in the midst of the civil rights struggle in the United States. Southern states systematically enacted laws that circumvented the Fifteenth Amendment and disfranchised African Americans. Following the passage of the VRA, southern states brought a number of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Act. In 1966 the U.S. Supreme Court conclusively stated:

"Congress had found that case-by-case litigation was inadequate to combat wide-spread and persistent discrimination in voting, because of the inordinate amount of time and energy required to overcome the obstructionist tactics invariably encountered in these lawsuits. After enduring nearly a century of systematic resistance to the Fifteenth Amendment, Congress might well decide to shift the advantage of time and inertia from the perpetrators of the evil to its victims."
South Carolina v. Katzenbach, 383 U.S. 301, 327-28 (1966).

On its 47th anniversary, the Voting Rights Act is more relevant than ever. Voter ID bills, bills that would require voters to present a valid, government issued ID, are popping up across the country. Today, only three states -- Wyoming, Oregon and Vermont -- who do not already have voter ID laws on their books did not consider such legislation this year. During the past year, seven states enacted voter ID laws, six states passed voter ID legislation in one chamber, five states had voter ID legislation vetoed and, in one state, voter ID legislation is currently pending. States that have voter ID laws are often unclear on what types of ID can be used. Some say it must be a valid, government issued ID. Others, allow valid student IDs. However, in Pennsylvania in particular there was confusion over what constituted a valid student ID. Pennsylvania required an expiration date on the student IDs in order to consider them valid but, most Pennsylvania schools do not include an expiration date on their IDs.

This is a problem because voter ID laws disproportionately affect low-income, minority, elderly, disabled and young voters. There are approximately 21 million Americans who do not have a government issued photo ID. It is estimated that voter ID laws will disfranchise as many as 5 million voters nationwide in the upcoming election cycle. See our infographic on the facts about voter suppression.

Even more worrisome is the fact that voter ID laws are alleged to correct a problem that is virtually non-existent, voter fraud. In Wyoming there have only been two cases of attempted voter fraud in the past sixteen years, and both culprits were apprehended and tried. The Department of Justice conducted a nationwide study and discovered that between 2002 and 2007, out of 300 million votes cast, there were only eighty-six cases of voter fraud.

Under the guise of protecting the integrity of elections, voter ID laws effectively push people out of the electorate. The consequence of these laws is that they erect barriers to the ballot box that disfranchise many low-income, minority, elderly, disabled and young voters who do not possess the type of identification required. Voting is an integral part of our democratic system; the more people who vote the more accurately the results represent the will of the people. Preventing any portion of the population from voting is an abuse of the democratic process.

On the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, it is important to ensure that we continue to move forward and not regress to similar tactics used to keep many African Americans from the polls. Voting is the most basic right we share as Americans, and in order for this to be a true democracy, every eligible American must be able to vote.

Julianne Gern
ACLU of Wyoming Legal Extern