The article I focused on this week was related to both mental illness and homelessness, but with an emphasis on law enforcement. The article was titled, “Police and Homeless Outreach Worker Partnerships: Policing of Homeless Individuals with Mental Illness in Washington D.C.” The article is located in the scholarly journal called ‘Human Organization’ and was written by Jennie Simpson.

Simpson, Jennie. 2015. “Police and Homeless Outreach Worker Partnerships: Policing of Homeless Individuals with Mental Illness in Washington, D.C.” Human Organization 74 (2): 125-134. http://ezproxy.redlands.edu/docview/1688054975?accountid=14729.

The article decided to put an emphasis on law enforcement in relation to the homeless population and mental illness because of the attention of it in the media. In recent years there were police shootings that unfortunately killed several mentally ill homeless in several different states. The police in Washington D.C. recognized this tragedy and decided it would be best to put their efforts into a worthy cause and partner with the Homeless Outreach Programs that are available in D.C. Unfortunately, due to our economy services that could help the mentally ill have shit down leaving them homeless. The research question being asked is, “Is law enforcement partnering with homeless outreach programs a possible solution?” To answer this question the author uses ethnographic data to watch interactions between the police and the homeless before and after they informally partnered with the homeless outreach programs. To analyze this type of data, would be qualitative data. It is qualitative data because you have to turn your observations into categories they can analyze. Something I found interesting in this is that the article made it a point to stress that this was a difficult task for the police officers. It was difficult because they wanted to reduce crime through law enforcement, but were also trying to provide services to the less fortunate.