Product Code Database
Loitering is the act of standing or waiting around idly without apparent purpose in some public places.
While the laws regarding loitering have been challenged and changed over time, loitering of suspect people can be illegal in some jurisdictions and some specific circumstances.
Loitering provides a lesser offence that can be used by police to confront and deter suspect individuals from lingering in a high-crime area, especially when criminal intent is suspected but not observed.
Local areas vary on the degree to which police are empowered to arrest or disperse loiterers; limitations on their power are sometimes made over concerns regarding racial profiling and unnecessary use of police force. The offence remains highly subjective.
The Vagrancy Act 1824 permits in section 6 "any person whatsoever" to apprehend offenders and to bring them directly before a Justice of the Peace. The same section creates a duty on "any Constable or other Peace Officer" to apprehend and bring them before a justice of the peace, or be charged with "Neglect of Duty", punishable in section 11 by a fine of five pounds or three months in jail. The same Act provides disbursements from the general funds of Council for expenses of Prosecutors and Witnesses. Classes of persons that the Act was designed to dissuade, on penalty of three months at hard labor, include:
The law was also used to criminalize men who were found in areas where men picked each other up for sex.
The Offences Against the Person Act 1861 stated, "Any constable or peace officer may take into Arrest, without a Arrest warrant, any person whom he shall find lying or loitering in any highway, yard, or other place during the night, and whom he shall have good cause to suspect of having committed or being about to commit any felony in this Act mentioned, and shall take such person as soon as reasonably may be before a justice of the peace, to be dealt with according to law."
Today in Ireland, the Criminal Justice (Public Order) Act, 1994 allows the Garda Síochána to order to move on any person who "without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, is acting in a manner which consists of loitering in a public place in circumstances, which may include the company of other persons, that give rise to a reasonable apprehension for the safety of persons or the safety of property or for the maintenance of the public peace," and to arrest anyone who does not follow their orders; on conviction, the penalty is a fine of up to €1,000 or up to 6 months' imprisonment.
Rather than imposing penalties, the law focused on preventative measures, including distancing, monitoring, and retaining individuals deemed potentially dangerous until their perceived threat had subsided. Unfortunately, its regulatory development distorted the law's original intent, establishing internment camps known as "Reformatories for Vagrants and Ruffians. Colonia penitenciaria en Annobón. Diario Español. This allowed for the arbitrary use of the law to persecute loitering and also to suppress individuals without means, both during the Second Republic and later during the Franco regime.
During Francoist Spain, this law was strictly applied, particularly to individuals who were often petty thieves or merely unemployed, falling under the category of habitual vagrants. Paradoxically, those with higher purchasing power, such as "advantage players and ruffians", human traffickers, or procurers, rarely faced the harsh consequences of this law due to their legal defenses and financial means. News reports of the time often featured sentences handed down under the Vagrancy and Ruffianry Act, which routinely sentenced individuals to one to three years of internment in what were essentially "concentration camps," as dictated by the local courts. "La Construcción Discursiva del Sujeto Peligroso en la ley de Vagos y Maleantes Durante el Franquismo (Islas Canarias, 1950-1959)", Vínculos de Historia.
Furthermore, the Franco regime further amended the law on July 15, 1954, to include the repression of homosexuals. In 1970, the law was replaced by another, the Law on Dangerousness and Social Rehabilitation, with similar terms but included sentences of up to five years of internment in prisons or asylums for homosexuals and other individuals deemed socially dangerous for the purpose of rehabilitation, maintaining loitering within its terms. Despite the law not being applied during the democratic period, it remained in force until its complete repeal in 1995.
In 1992, the city of Chicago adopted an anti-loitering law aimed at restricting gang related activity, especially violent crime and drug trafficking. The law, which defined loitering as "remaining in any one place with no apparent purpose", gave police officers a right to disperse such persons. In cases of disobedience, the law provided a punishment by fine, imprisonment or community service. It was ruled unlawful by the Supreme Court of the United States ( Chicago v. Morales, ) as unacceptably vague by not giving citizens clear guidelines on what acceptable conduct was. In 2000, the city adopted a revised version of the ordinance, in an attempt to eliminate the unconstitutional elements. Loitering was then defined as "remaining in any one place under circumstances that would warrant a reasonable person to believe that the purpose or effect of that behavior is to enable a criminal street gang to establish control over identifiable areas, to intimidate others from entering those areas, or to conceal illegal activities."
|
|
