vagrancy

vagrancy,

in law, term applied to the offense of persons who are without visible means of support or domiciledomicile
, one's legal residence. This may or may not be the place where one actually resides at any one time. The domicile is the permanent home to which one is presumed to have the intention of returning whenever the purpose for which one is absent has been accomplished.
..... Click the link for more information. while able to work. State laws and municipal ordinances punishing vagrancy often also cover loitering, associating with reputed criminals, prostitution, and drunkenness. The punishment is usually a fine or several months in jail. Instead of arresting vagrants, local officials often attempt to induce them to move on. Beginning in the 1960s vagrancy laws came under constitutional attack. The vague statutory language was often held to be too broad, in violation of the due process requirements of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: individuals were not adequately warned of what conduct was forbidden and police had too much discretion in deciding whether to make an arrest. It was ruled that enforcement of the laws often violated the protections of the First Amendment, especially when police used them against political demonstrators and unpopular groups. U.S. vagrancy laws generally punish the status of being a vagrant and not some overt act. This approach derives from English laws of the 16th cent. that generally failed to distinguish between the indigent and the criminal and that set harsh punishments, including whipping and transportation to the colonies. England gradually modified its poor lawspoor law,
in English history, legislation relating to public assistance for the poor. Early measures to relieve pauperism were usually designed to suppress vagrancy and begging.
..... Click the link for more information. and today punishes only overt acts dangerous to the community. Vagrants are often tolerated as scavengers, and in certain East Asian countries they are ascribed semireligious qualities, revered, but also feared, for their spiritual powers. Vagrants are basically a product of unemployment and their numbers swell during depressions.

Bibliography

See C. J. Ribton-Turner, The History of Vagrants and Vagrancy (1887, repr. 1972).

Vagrancy

a social phenomenon in exploitative states engendered by the neediness and uncertain existence of workers. It is expressed in a person’s continuous movement from place to place, a homeless way of life, living on charity, and the like. In an exploitative social structure the persons compelled to become vagrants are deprived by society itself of the opportunity of participating in productive labor.

In tsarist Russia vagrancy was very widespread as a result of the difficult material conditions of workers; over the course of centuries, impoverished town dwellers, fugitive serfs and convicts, shelterless invalids and shelterless elderly, and wandering monks became vagrants and beggars. In the second half of the 19th and early 20th century, in conditions of the general economic decline of the village and also as a result of crop failures, fires, and cattle plagues, the number of vagrants increased, and they headed in large numbers to the cities, where they lived mainly by begging.

The causes of vagrancy in modern bourgeois states are exploitation, economic crises, impoverishment of the village, chronic unemployment, and wars and the neediness they engender among the poorest strata of the population. In bourgeois society accumulation of capital and technological progress inevitably turn part of the workers into surplus labor; these workers are excluded from the sphere of social production and are thereby condemned to poverty and a homeless way of life. The number of vagrants is particularly high in urban districts populated by the poor. The forced character of labor in capitalist society also gives rise to vagrancy. The ranks of the chronically unemployed, a significant part of whom become vagrants, are continually replenished by ruined small producers from the city and the village, down-and-out representatives of the intelligentsia, and others.

Despite the objective inevitability of vagrancy in bourgeois society, the legislation of many capitalist countries regards vagrancy as a crime requiring punishment. For example, in the USA the code of the state of California (paragraph 647) contains a lengthy definition of vagrancy, which is punishable by severe fines or deprivation of liberty. [A vagrant is defined as] every person who roams the streets during late or night hours without obvious or legal purposes, or every person who takes shelter in any warehouse, shed, or railroad car … without the owner’s permission, or every person known as a drunkard, and so on. In Great Britain there are three categories of persons who are subject to punishment for vagrancy: (a) parasites (petty peddlers wandering and trading without the required permit, beggars, and others); (b) vagrants (persons who beg by displaying their wounds or deformities, persons living in sheds … and presenting themselves in a bad light, and the like); and (c) incorrigible vagrants (persons repeatedly carrying out activities as outlined in point “b”). The Italian criminal code (art. 670) punishes begging by deprivation of liberty (arrest). The vagueness and imprecision of legal formulations make it possible to subject any unemployed or unfortunate person to punishment for vagrancy and to deprive persons who do not present any danger to society of their liberty. The police often use measures intended to combat vagrancy for the repression of the poorest strata of the population who protest against severe social conditions.

In socialist society, where exploitation of man by man and unemployment do not exist and the material conditions of the workers are systematically improving, vagrancy as a social phenomenon has been overcome. The cases of vagrancy and accompanying begging that occur represent a form of evasion of socially useful work by antisocial elements, a parasitic attempt to live at the expense of society, a means to escape criminal responsibility for crimes committed, and a refusal to pay alimony and to care for children. (Many vagrants are sought as criminals and nonpayers of alimony.)

In the USSR existing legislation specifies that vagrancy and begging are criminal offenses under certain conditions. Vagrancy is understood to mean a periodic change of place of residence for the purpose of evading socially useful labor, and begging (which is often combined with vagrancy) is understood to mean existing for a more or less lengthy period of time by asking other people for money or other material valuables for purposes of parasitic enrichment. Citizens reaching 18 years of age and capable of working are subject to punishment for vagrancy and begging. Youths aged 16 to 18 who are drawn into vagrancy and begging are placed in jobs or in childrens’ establishments; sometimes guardianship over them is arranged and so on. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR (Art. 209) and the criminal codes of some other Union republics make systematic vagrancy and begging punishable by correctional tasks for a term of up to one year or deprivation of liberty for a term of up to two years if they continue after the vagrant or beggar has received repeated warnings from administrative organs to find work and change his way of life. Drawing minors into the occupation of begging or exploiting them for purposes of parasitic existence is a particular form of crime (Criminal Code of the RSFSR, Art. 210). Taking into account the serious nature of drawing minors into begging, the law provides severe punishments for such crimes—deprivation of liberty for a period up to five years.

In some Union republics of the USSR, in view of the complete absence of vagrancy and begging, these forms of crime are not covered in the criminal codes.

V. I. TEREBILOV and IU. M. ANTONIAN

Vagrancy

The condition of an individual who is idle, has no visible means of support, and travels from place to place without working.

At Common Law the term vagrant referred to a person who was idle, refused to work although capable of doing so, and lived on the charity of others. Until the 1970s state vagrancy statutes were used by police to charge persons who were suspected of criminal activity, but whose actions had not gone far enough to constitute a criminal attempt. Court decisions, however, have struck down vagrancy laws as unconstitutionally vague. In addition, the term vagrant has been replaced by Homeless Person as a way of describing a person who is without means or a permanent home.

Traditionally, communities tended to regard vagrants with suspicion and view them either as beggars or as persons likely to commit crimes. In England vagrants were whipped, branded, conscripted into military service, or exiled to penal colonies. In colonial America vagrancy statutes were common. A person who wandered into a town and did not find work was told to leave the community or face criminal prosecution.

After the U.S. Civil War, the defeated Southern states enacted Black Codes, sets of laws that sought to maintain white control over the newly freed African American slaves. The concern that African Americans would leave their communities and deplete the labor supply led to the inclusion of vagrancy laws in these codes. Unemployed African Americans who had no permanent residence could be arrested and fined. Typically, the person could not pay the fine and was therefore either sent for a term of labor with the county or hired out to a private employer.

The abuse of vagrancy laws by the police throughout the United States was common. Such laws were vague and undefined, allowing police to arrest persons merely on the suspicion they were about to do something illegal. In 1972 the U.S. Supreme Court addressed this problem in Papachristou v. Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 92 S. Ct. 839, 31 L. Ed. 2d 110. The Court ruled that a Florida vagrancy statute was unconstitutional because it was too vague to be understood. The Court emphasized that members of the public cannot avoid engaging in criminal conduct, if prior to engaging in it, they cannot determine that the conduct is forbidden by law. The Court also concluded that the vagrancy law's vagueness lent itself to Arbitrary enforcement: police, prosecutors, and juries could enforce the law more stringently against one person than against another, even though the two individuals' conduct was similar.

After Papachristou the validity of vagrancy statutes was put in doubt. Prosecutions for vagrancy must now be tied to observable acts, such as public begging. Prosecutions are rare, however, because local governments do not want to spend their financial resources incarcerating persons for such offenses.

Cross-references

Homeless Person; Void for Vagueness Doctrine.

vagrancy

n. moving about without a means to support oneself, without a permanent home, and relying on begging. Until recently it was a considered a minor crime (misdemeanor) in many states. Constitutionally it is evident that being poor is not a crime. The same is true of "loitering."

vagrancy

va·gran·cy

vagrancy

va•gran•cy

vagrancy

vagrant

vagrancy

vagrancy,

Bibliography

Vagrancy

Vagrancy

Vagrancy

Cross-references

vagrancy

vagrancy

Synonyms for vagrancy

noun homelessness

Synonyms

Words related to vagrancy

noun the state of wandering from place to place

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