Just like their kinfolk in the “harm-reduction” movement — which, ironically, advocates for “safe use” sites where drug addicts can get their fix legally — apologists for the hardcore homeless would prescribe them more of what’s killing them.

Notably, letting them continue to eke out their days in the misery of street life and, particularly, in the squalid and dangerous encampments where substance abuse and violence abound.

Those who rise in defense of the camps — scolding local authorities who seek to shut them down — sometimes even manage to enlist the aid of academia. Research institutions become allies, wittingly or otherwise, of those who would consign the street dwellers to their doom.

Last week offered a case in point with the release of a new national study by public health researchers affiliated with the medical schools at CU and at the University of California-San Diego. Published in the national Journal of Urban Health, the study looked at Denver’s crime statistics near homeless encampments before and after the city conducted a “sweep” of the camps — and found that nearby crime rates didn’t drop despite the camps’ closure.

As quoted in The Gazette, the study’s lead author pronounced, “There is no evidence that sweeps make our community safer.”

Let’s overlook the fact that the camps themselves are technically illegal in most cities — for good reason — so their closure, by definition, reduces crime. And let’s defer to the researchers in their data-driven — if narrow — conclusion that, statistically, there was no significant reduction in auto thefts or burglaries or assaults reported to police in a given neighborhood in the weeks after a camp’s closure.

But what about the panhandling (also illegal) by the campers at nearby intersections and off-ramps? What about all the scuffles, beatings, domestic violence, child abuse and worse, including sexual assaults, that occur inside the camps but don’t get reported in the first place? Or, the crimes campers commit during their daily meanderings, but that are far enough away so they don’t count for purposes of the study? And, of course, what of all the illegal drug transactions — also unreported — that are occurring constantly in the camps?

Meaning, the study’s limited scope of inquiry misses the point. And reading too much into such data serves to hinder a community’s fight against homelessness.

The camps are hellholes — for their inhabitants as well as the surrounding community. They fuel addictions; exacerbate mental illness; threaten safety, and ingrain an all-around debilitating lifestyle for the campers. At the same time, the noise, stench, intimidation and overall urban blight of the shantytowns — their dwellers relieving themselves in parks and shooting up in your kids’ favorite public playground — undermine the quality of life for the rest of the community. All of which is reason enough for authorities to move in swiftly and surely.

The researchers behind the study might protest they didn’t set out to measure that bigger picture. Fair enough. Then, let’s not use their findings to set up a straw man — and justify bad policy.

Failure to vigorously enforce municipal camping bans; ordering law enforcement to ease up on panhandling, jaywalking or disorderly behavior; looking the other way on public drug and alcohol use — harm not only the community but also the street dwellers themselves.

It’s not compassion. Just the opposite: It’s cruelty dished out with a dose of “data” and a smirk of superiority. As if to say the poor dears can’t do any better, so let’s just indulge them.

Real compassion involves restoring their dignity and productivity. It means shutting down bad options and pointing the way to good ones: Rehab; mental health treatment; job placement and eventually training. In other words, opening the door and using the force of law, if needed, to nudge them in. Only then will they see a much better life awaits them — off the streets.

the gazette editorial board