Homeless Man Chooses Jail Rather Than The Streets

It is sad when a person without a home would rather commit a crime and go to jail than stay homeless living on the streets. The “security” of four walls, a cot, and three meals is better than open sky, a hard sidewalk, and no food.

What’s wrong with our society when we allow people to choose jail over homelessness?

Here’s the beginning of the article:

James Cox makes no apologies for his crimes because they got him three meals a day and a bed to sleep in for the first time in ten years.

"You may think this is a jail but to me it's the Hollywood Hilton, no joke," Cox said Thursday night from the Olmstead County Adult Detention Center.

Last Friday James made a choice that he would no longer be homeless. Shunned, he said, by a system that cannot save him Cox broke 22-hundred dollars worth of windows at a Rochester Chevy dealer, walked into the police station, and said, "Book me, and put me in jail."

"I know I broke the law but no one would help me, I paid into the system and the system got me here," Cox said.

James is no saint. He admits to being a drug dealer for 20 years. In the last 10, he's lived on the streets. "I asked for help, do you have a better suggestion because if you do I am willing to listen or try," Cox asked.

He says he'd be happy to work. But who will hire a man off the streets, who can't read or write, and is nearly crippled by arthritis.

"In this day and age, would you hire me?"

And so he calls a cell like this home for as long as he can.