ABSTRACT

The coronavirus pandemic has negatively affected people of all social strata, and continues to do so, but its effect has been the most severe on members of the most precarious populations. In this exploratory study conducted in Switzerland, the specific situation of homeless people, a particularly vulnerable population, is examined from a criminological perspective. In total, we surveyed 32 homeless individuals: 14 during the first wave of the pandemic (March-September 2020) and 18 during the second wave (December 2020-March 2021). Results corroborate that the pandemic has had adverse effects on the respondents – both socioeconomic and psychological. Most of the participants do not use drugs and, overall, those who reported drug use did not report an increase during the epidemic. The occurrence of both victimization and offending is low among the participants. Ethical and methodological considerations such as the minimization of social desirability bias, satisficing, as well as the recruitment of difficult-to-reach participants and data collection more broadly during a pandemic are discussed.

摘要

冠状病毒大流行已经对社会各阶层的人们产生了负面影响，并将继续对社会各阶层的人们产生负面影响，但其对最不稳定人群的影响最为严重。在瑞士进行的这项探索性研究中，从犯罪学的角度审视了无家可归者这一特别脆弱的人群的具体情况。我们总共调查了 32 名无家可归者：14 人在第一波大流行期间（2020 年 3 月至 9 月），18 人在第二波大流行期间（2020 年 12 月至 2021 年 3 月）。结果证实，大流行对受访者产生了不利影响——包括社会经济和心理方面的影响。大多数参与者不使用药物，总体而言，报告使用药物的人在流行期间并未报告增加。参与者中受害和冒犯的发生率都很低。讨论了伦理和方法论方面的考虑，例如最大限度地减少社会期望偏差、满足以及招募难以接触到的参与者以及在大流行期间更广泛地收集数据。