Vagrancy

John Everett Millais "The Blind Girl": vagrant musicians

For an alternative use of the term, see vagrancy (biology). For the mid-sixties Long Island rock band, see The Vagrants. For the tugboat, see ST Vagrant.

A vagrant is a person in poverty, who wanders from place to place without a home or regular employment or income. Many towns in the Developed World have shelters for vagrants. Common terminology is a tramp or a 'gentleman of the road'. In legal terminology, a person with a source of income is not a vagrant, even if he/she is homeless.

History

In the fairy tales of medieval Europe, beggars cast curses on anyone who was insulting or stingy towards them. Witches would beg door-to-door for "milk, yeast, drink, pottage" in England. In some East Asian countries, vagrants are still revered and feared, believed to possess semi-religious spiritual powers.

Vagrancy in Canadian law

179. Vagrancy

(1) Every one commits vagrancy who

(a) supports himself in whole or in part by gaming or crime and has no lawful profession or calling by which to maintain himself; or

(b) having at any time been convicted of an offence under section 151, 152 or 153, subsection 160(3) or 173(2) or section 271, 272 or 273, or of an offence under a provision referred to in paragraph (b) of the definition “serious personal injury offence” in section 687 of the Criminal Code, chapter C-34 of the Revised Statutes of Canada, 1970, as it read before January 4, 1983, is found loitering in or near a school ground, playground, public park or bathing area.

Punishment

(2) Every one who commits vagrancy is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

Everyone who is convicted of an offence punishable on summary conviction is liable to a fine of not more than five thousand dollars or to a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months or to both.

Vagrancy in Russian law

Tsardom of Russia

In Tsardom of Russia legal term "Vagrancy" (Russian: Бродяжничество) meant other then respective terms (vagabondage, Landstreicherei) at Western Europe. For example, in Germany, vagrancy is aimless habitual travelling from one place to other without livelihood and without desire to earn an honest livelihood.

Russian law recognized man as vagrants if he/she can't prove own standing (title) or changing place of living without permission police authorities. Condition of punishability of vagrancy in Tsardom of Russia was not loitering or absence of livelihood, but not evidence or false evidence of own standing or title (if man don't want or can't). Foreigners who had been twice expatriated with prohibition of return to Empire and had been arrested in Russia again also was recognized as vagrants.

Punishments for vagrancy was harsh enough. In accordance with Ulozhenie about punishments , vagrant who tell that he can't remember kinship, or don't tell standing, title or place of permanent residence, or gives false evidence – will sentenced to 4-year imprisonment and exile to Siberia or another far province after that.

Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic

In Criminal Code of RSFSR 1960 which came into force at 1-st of January 1961 systematic (more than two times) vagrancy was punishable up to 2-year imprisonment (section 209)

It was actual till 5-th of December 1991, when Section 209 had been cancelled and vagrancy became not criminal.

Modern Russia

At the present, vagrancy in Russian Federation is not a crime or law violence.

But inducing juvenile (under 18) to vagrancy committed by a person over 18 years old is a crime (CC of RF, section 151).

Vagrancy in the UK law

In the 16th and 17th century in England, a vagrant was a person who could work, but preferred not to (or could not find employment, so took to the road in order to do so), or one who begs for a living. Vagrancy was illegal, punishable by branding, whipping, conscription into the military, or at times penal transportation to penal colonies. Vagrants were different from impotent poor, who were unable to support themselves because of advanced age or sickness. However, the English laws usually did not distinguish between the impotent poor and the criminals, so both received the same harsh punishments. The Poor Law was the system for the provision of social security in operation in England and Wales from the 16th century until the establishment of the Welfare State in the 20th century.

Vagrancy in the USA law

In colonial America, if a person wandered into a town and did not find work, he/she was told to leave town or be prosecuted. In the U.S., vagrancy laws were vague and covered a wide range of activities and crimes associated with vagrants, such as loitering, prostitution, drunkenness, and associating with known criminals. Under the vagrancy laws, police arrested people who were suspected of crime, but who had not committed a crime. Eventually, punishments were changed to a fine, or several months in jail.

After the U.S. Civil War, the South passed Black Codes, laws that tried to control freed black slaves. Vagrancy laws were included in these codes. Homeless unemployed black Americans were arrested and fined as vagrants. Usually, the person could not afford the fine, and so was sent to county labor or hired out to a private employer.

In the U.S. of the 1960s, vagrancy laws were found to be too broad and vague, and in violation of the due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, as citizens were not informed of which behaviors were illegal. Police had too much power in deciding whether or not to arrest someone. Vagrancy laws could no longer violate Freedom of Speech, such as when police use them against political demonstrators and unpopular groups. U.S. vagrancy laws became clearer, narrower, and more defined. Since then, the status of being a vagrant is punished by the vagrancy laws, while other actions are punished under other laws.

In Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a Florida vagrancy law was unconstitutional because it was too vague to be understood.

Nevertheless, new local laws in the U.S. have been passed to criminalize aggressive panhandling activities by vagrants. In recent years, there has been an increase in laws criminalizing vagrancy and related activities in the United States – see 2009 Homes Not Handcuffs – some under the rubric of sit-lie ordinances.

In the U.S., some local officials encourage vagrants to move away instead of arresting them. The word vagrant has been replaced by homeless person. Prosecutions for vagrancy are rare, being replaced by prosecutions for specific offenses such as loitering. England eventually changed its poor laws, and today vagrancy is legal, while crimes are punished separately.

See also

• Hobo
• Homelessness
• Squatting
• Status crime
• Vagabond (person)

External links

• Encyclopædia Britannica Article on Vagrancy