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Vagrancy is the condition of wandering homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by travelling while engaging in begging, waste picker, or petty theft. In Western countries, vagrancy was historically a crime punishable with forced labor, military service, imprisonment, or confinement to dedicated .
Both vagrant and vagabond ultimately derive from the Latin word , meaning "to wander". The term vagabond and its archaic equivalent come from Latin vagabundus ("strolling about"). In Middle English, vagabond originally denoted a person without a home or employment.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> Definition of vagabond from Oxford Dictionaries Online
Some ancient sources show vagrants as passive objects of pity, who deserve generosity and the gift of alms. Others show them as subversives, or outlaws, who make a parasitical living through theft, fear and threat.
were itinerant monks of the early Middle Ages. Some of medieval Europe have beggars cast curses on anyone who was insulting or stingy toward them. In Tudor England, some of those who begged door-to-door for "milk, yeast, drink, pottage" were thought to be witches. The Discovery of Witchcraft (London, 1584) by Reginald Scot
Many world religions, both in history and today, have vagrant traditions or make reference to vagrants. In Christianity, Jesus is shown in the Bible as having compassion for beggars, prostitutes, and the disenfranchised. The Catholic Church also teaches compassion for people living in vagrancy. Vagrant lifestyles are seen in Christian movements, such as in the mendicant orders. Many still exist in places like Europe, Africa, and the Near East, as preserved by Gnosticism, Hesychasm, and various esoteric practices.
In some East Asian and South Asian countries, the condition of vagrancy has long been historically associated with the religious life, as described in the religious literature of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Muslim Sufi traditions. Examples include , , , and the sramana traditions generally.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "Poor Laws: A Historiography of Vagrancy in Australia". History Compass. 11 (8): 537–550 – via EBSCO. The Belgian Criminal Law of 1867 had high levels of recidivism, leading to questions concerning its effectiveness in combating vagrancy From 27 November 1891, a vagabond could be jailed. Vagabonds, beggars and procurers were imprisoned in vagrancy prisons: Hoogstraten; Merksplas; and Wortel (Flanders). There, the prisoners had to work for their living by working on the land or in the prison. If the prisoners had earned enough money, then they could leave the "colony" (as it was called). On 12 January 1993, the Belgian vagrancy law was repealed. At that time, 260 vagabonds still lived in the Wortel colony.
In the Weimar Republic, the law against vagrancy was relaxed, but it became much more stringent in Nazi Germany, where vagrancy, together with begging, prostitution, and "work-shyness" ( arbeitsscheu), was classified as "anti-social behavior" ( Asoziale) and punishable by confinement to concentration camps.
This continued until 5 December 1991, when Section 209 was repealed and vagrancy ceased to be a criminal offense.Закон «О внесении изменений и дополнений в Уголовный кодекс РСФСР, Уголовно-процессуальный кодекс РСФСР и кодекс РСФСР об административных правонарушениях» jn 5 December 1991 № 1982-I // Ведомости Съезда НД РФ и ВС РФ, N 52, 26.12.91, ст. 1867
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> "Policing the Pueblo: Vagrancy and Indigenous Citizenship in Oaxaca, 1848-1876". Ethnohistory. 70 (3): 385–404 – via EBSCO.
In the Vagabonds Act 1547, Edward VI ordained that "if anyone refuses to work, he shall be condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced him as an idler. The master has the right to force him to do any work, no matter how vile, with whip and chains. If the slave is absent for a fortnight, he is condemned to slavery for life and is to be branded on forehead or back with the letter S; if he runs away three times, he is to be executed as a felon.... If it happens that a vagabond has been idling about for three days, he is to be taken to his birthplace, branded with a red hot iron with the letter V on his breast, and set to work, in chains, on the roads or at some other labour.... Every master may put an iron ring round the neck, arms or legs of his slave, by which to know him more easily."An Act for the Punishing of Vagabonds (1 Edw. 6. c. 3)
In England, the Vagabonds Act 1572 passed under Elizabeth I, defined a rogue as a person who had no land, no master, and no legitimate trade or source of income; it included rogues in the class of vagrants or vagabonds. If a person were apprehended as a rogue, he would be stripped to the waist, whipped until bleeding, and a hole, about the compass of an inch about, would be burned through the cartilage of his right ear with a hot iron.1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, "Theatre" A rogue who was charged with a second offence, unless taken in by someone who would give him work for one year, could face execution as a felony. A rogue charged with a third offence would only escape death if someone hired him for two years.
The Vagabonds Act 1572 decreed that "unlicensed beggars above fourteen years of age are to be severely flogged and branded on the left ear unless someone will take them into service for two years; in case of a repetition of the offence, if they are over eighteen, they are to be executed, unless someone will take them into service for two years; but for the third offence they are to be executed without mercy as felons." The same act laid the legal groundwork for the enforced exile (penal transportation) of "obdurate idlers" to "such parts beyond the seas as shall be … assigned by the Privy Council".An Act for the Punishment of Vagabonds (14 Eliz. 1. c. 4) At the time, this meant exile for a fixed term to the Virginia Company's plantations in America. Those who returned unlawfully from their place of exile faced death by hanging.
The Vagabonds Act 1597 banished and transplanted "incorrigible and dangerous rogues" overseas.
In Das Kapital ( Capital Volume One, Chapter Twenty-Eight: Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated, from the End of the 15th Century. Forcing Down of Wages by Acts of Parliament), Karl Marx wrote:
In late-eighteenth-century Middlesex, those suspected of vagrancy could be detained by the constable or watchman and brought before a magistrate who had the legal right to interview them to determine their status. If declared vagrant, they were to be arrested, whipped, and physically expelled from the county by a vagrant contractor, whose job it was to take them to the edge of the county and pass them to the contractor for the next county on the journey. This process would continue until the person reached his or her place of legal settlement, which was often but not always their place of birth.
In 1795, the Speenhamland system (also known as the Berkshire Bread Act) tried to address some of the problems that underlay vagrancy. The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created as an indirect result of Britain's involvements in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815).Polanyi, Karl, and Robert Morrison MacIver. The Great Transformation. Vol. 5. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957. p.168
In 1821, the existing vagrancy law was reviewed by a House of Commons select committee, resulting in the publication of the, Report from the Select Committee on The Existing Laws Relating to Vagrants. After hearing the views of many witnesses appearing before it the select committee made several recommendations. The select committee found that the existing vagrancy laws had become over-complicated and that they should be amended and consolidated into a single act of Parliament. The payment of fixed rewards for the apprehension and taking vagrants before had led to abuses of the system. Due to the Poor Laws, vagrants to receive poverty relief had to seek it from the parish where they were last legally settled, often the parish where they were born. This led to a system of convicted vagrants being 'passed' from parish to parish from where they had been convicted and punished to their own parish. The 'pass' system led to them being transported by vagrancy contractors, a system found to be open to abuses and fraud. It also found that in many instances the punishment for vagrancy offences were insufficient and certain types of vagrants should be given longer prison sentences and made to complete hard labour during it.
Based on the findings and recommendations from the 1821 House of Commons Select on Vagrancy, a new Act of Parliament was introduced, 'An Act for the Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in that Part of Great Britain called England', commonly known as the Vagrancy Act 1824. The Vagrancy Act 1824 consolidated the previous vagrancy laws and addressed many of the frauds and abuses identified during the select committee hearings. Much reformed since 1824, some of the offences included in it are still enforceable.
Since at least as early as the 1930s, a vagrancy law in America typically has rendered "no visible means of support" a misdemeanor, yet it has commonly been used as a pretext to take one into custody for such things as loitering, prostitution, drunkenness, or criminal association. Prior to 2020, the criminal statutes of law in Louisiana specifically criminalized vagrancy as associating with prostitutes, being a professional gambler, being a habitual drunk, or living on the social welfare benefits or pensions of others.LA Rev Stat § 14:107, http://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?d=78260 This law established as vagrants all those healthy adults who are not engaged in gainful employment.
Vagrancy laws proven unacceptably broad and vague may have been found to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Such laws could no longer be used to obstruct the "freedom of speech" of a political demonstrator or an unpopular group. Ambiguous vagrancy laws became more narrowly and clearly defined.
In Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), the Supreme Court of the United States 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. Legal Opinion 2008-1 (On Aggressive Panhandling) Nashville, 20 February 2008 Aggressive Panhandling & Solicitation – It's a Crime and You Can Help! City of Minneapolis
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