What is the safest way for a partially disabled person in the USA to use prison for food and shelter as an alternative to dying homeless in a gutter on a cold rainy night?
Ideally you want to go to a shelter first, because if a shelter is dangerous or unclean you can just leave (unlike jail). If you can’t find a shelter that has space for you, the next best thing is to sleep somewhere visible but somewhat sheltered and out of the way. Church doorways are ideal since if they find you they will usually offer you help rather than call the cops on you.
If none of those avenues are available to you, hit up your local library. If they don’t outright have a social worker on staff they’ll know how to put you in contact with one and help you with applying for benefits that can at least keep you fed, and will hopefully know how to most effectively get you in line for housing.
Low effort high sentence crime like credit card or check fraud. Represent yourself in court and be a complete ass to maximize the jury's dislike of you, no sob stories reveal zero empathy for what you did. Try to find that sweet spot between minimum security prison, but long sentencing. Make a friend in jail and start a "fight" with them the day before your probation hearing or something to extend the behavior without angering the guards/warden too much?
It's a pretty high risk low reward strategy, but the risk is mostly because it's hard to get into a "good prison". Also make sure you do it in a state with free prison, some states are pay-to-stay prison, though I guess that could open the opportunity for loan fraud and another sentence if you do get out?
for less drama, you could "steal" property from someone you know and they could helpfully press charges so you can get arrested.
just a heads up, most prisons in the US are pay to stay, so you'll accrue debt while inside, and depending on what state you're in you might have to put up a copay for your medical care.
I'd advise doing a little research and committing your inoffensive bank robbery or the like in the right area.
I saw a video where a guy "robbed" a bank of $1, with a "gun" that was actually a snickers bar. Then sat in the lobby and waited for the cops.
That seems like a good way to rob a bank, which is a federal crime, while not hurting anyone. And the tellers would even be able to figure out whats going on.
There was an old guy a couple decades ago that walked into a bank and handed the teller a note that said "This is a robbery. Give me one dollar!". Then he went and sat down and waited for the cops. If memory serves, he did it because he needed some dental work and couldn't afford it.
The myth that you can go to jail and it’s free board and food is exactly that, a myth.
You’ll pay for it one way or another.
It’s peddled by conservatives who think that jail is some kind of walk in the park. Sure there are nicer prisons but it’s still prison. No one really prefers it to being out on the street.
I'm not sure how LAPD handles it, but I know that in a lot of cities, the police may just let you go if they think you're using jail as free shelter.
A buddy of mine spent a couple years homeless here in Austin, and would do low-level crimes like vandalizing things just to get picked up by the cops. He said that the police stopped arresting him after a while, and figured it was because he wasn't escalating his crimes at all; he didn't want to hurt anyone, he just wanted to sleep indoors for the night.
I'm sure LAPD is similarly too overworked and their jails too overcrowded to keep you there for more than a night or two, honestly.
You probably want to go to a minimum security federal prison. The easiest way to get there that I think of is check fraud.
You'll need to write a bunch or bad checks in as many states as you can, or send them through the mail. You'll need to do this a lot, and for a pretty significant amount of money otherwise they'll just give you probation of some sort.
Having a disability might be a problem though; if it costs too much medically to keep you in prison they'll just out you back on the street as a compassionate release.
I feel icky responding to this because it highlights how shitty society is at taking care of our less fortunate, but if I was inclined to get myself into jail I would probably start with shoplifting the things I need to survive like food, camping supplies, etc. Very low risk of violence and if I don’t get caught, hey I’m better off.
Eventually I’d get caught. Then I can just keep not showing up for court and shoplifting food. Eventually I’ll get thrown in jail and when released I start all over. After enough times I’d graduate from county jail to prison.
I’m not recommending this course of action, but it’s probably what I’d do if that was my goal. Nobody gets hurt.
I've heard of some people robbing a bank. The banks will generally give you the money if you threaten them and the camera will usually make it easy to identity you as a robber. You don't even need a gun, you just have to threaten people.
Would it be possible to volunteer some time to an organization like food not bombs I heard they were getting fines and arrested for distributing food. You could possibly secure some food, help the community and still potentially go to prison for not paying the bogus fine.
Walk into a police station and state you just killed someone. They will lock you up, just be coy about who and where the body is and they will keep you locked up, maybe. If you want out just recant and say you just wanted some shelter. Without a body or a crime scene you will be free to go. IANAL or a cop so I could be 100% wrong in my scheme.
If you are set on this, then do crimes that, if successful, would improve your life.
Steal billions of dollars from bad corporations. Steal food to live, trespass to be in shelter.
Personally, I would try to go to the cheapest town and get on benefits. Each state has a really cheap place to exist. There are usually no jobs, but often friendly people.
Sorry about your situation. You bring up a good point. Our economy and gov is so shit about housing, that it actually does make sense to commit a crime to have a place to stay. I'm guessing, it would be better to commit some kind of non-violent white collar crime? I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. This just sucks. Sorry. 😔
Carry out targeted attacks on the people and institutions that create the situation that you're in. Find other people in a similar situation with little to lose; there is safety in numbers. If people affected by this banded together, the problem would cease to exist.
As a form of protest, you could try to trespass into the white house in an obvious way. That would definitely get you jail time and maybe a GoFundMe. I figure if you have a sign, they won't shoot you.