Vagrancy

This article needs attention from an expert in

sociology. Learn more

John Everett Millais The Blind Girl, depicting vagrant

musicians
Caricature of a tramp

Vagrancy is the condition of

homelessness without regular
employment or income. Vagrants usually
live in poverty and support themselves by
begging, garbage scraping, petty theft,
temporary work, or welfare (where
available).
Historically, vagrancy in Western societies
was associated with petty crime, begging
and lawlessness, and punishable by law by
forced labor, forced military service,
imprisonment, or confinement to
dedicated labor houses.

A person who experiences this condition

may be referred to as a vagrant, vagabond,
rogue, tramp or drifter.[1]

Both vagrant and vagabond ultimately

derive from the Latin word vagari, meaning
"wander". The term vagabond is derived
from Latin vagabundus. In Middle English,
vagabond originally denoted a criminal.[2]
In modern societies, anti-homelessness
legislation aims to both help and re-house
homeless people on one side, and
criminalize homelessness and begging on
the other.

Historical views

A woodcut from c. 1536 depicting a vagrant being

punished in the streets in Tudor England.

Vagrants have been historically

characterised as outsiders in settled,
ordered communities: embodiments of
otherness, objects of scorn or mistrust, or
worthy recipients of help and charity.

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.

Some fairy tales of medieval Europe have

beggars cast curses on anyone who was
insulting or stingy towards them. In Tudor
England, some of those who begged door-
to-door for "milk, yeast, drink, pottage"
were thought to be witches.[3]

Many world religions, both in history and

today, have vagrant traditions or make
reference to vagrants. In Christianity,
Jesus is seen in the Bible shown having
compassion for beggars, prostitutes, and
the disenfranchised. The Catholic church
also teaches compassion for people living
in vagrancy[4]. Vagrant lifestyles are seen
in Christian movements in notable figures
such as St. Paul. Many still exist in places
like Europe, Africa, and the Near East, as
preserved by Gnosticism, Hesychasm, and
various esoteric practices
 This article needs additional citations for
verification. Learn more

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 Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and
Muslim Sufi traditions. Examples include
sadhus, dervishes, Bhikkhus and the
sramanic traditions generally.

Laws related to vagrancy

Belgium
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 workhouse. 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.

Finland and Sweden

In premodern Finland and Sweden,
vagrancy was a crime, which could result
in a sentence of forced labor or forced
military service. There was a "legal
protection" (Finnish: laillinen suojelu)
obligation: those not part of the estates of
the realm (nobility, clergy, burghers or land-
owners) were obliged to be employed, or
otherwise, they could be charged with
vagrancy. Legal protection was mandatory
already in medieval Swedish law, but
Gustav I of Sweden began strictly
enforcing this provision, applying it even
when work was potentially available. In
Finland, the legal protection provision was
repealed in 1883; however, vagrancy still
remained illegal, if connected with
"immoral" or "indecent" behavior.[5] In
1936, a new law moved the emphasis from
criminalization into social assistance.
Forced labor sentences were abolished in
1971 and anti-vagrancy laws were
repealed in 1987.[6]

Germany

In Germany, according to the 1871 Penal

Code (§ 361 des Strafgesetzbuches von
1871), vagabondage was among the
grounds to confine a person to a labor
house.[7][8]
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 "asocial
behavior" as punishable by confinement to
concentration camps.

Russia

Russian Empire

In the Russian Empire, the legal term

"vagrancy" (Russian: бродяжничество,
brodyazhnichestvo) was defined in
another way than corresponding terms
(vagabondage, Landstreicherei) in Western
Europe. Russian law recognized one as a
vagrant if he could not prove his own
standing (title), or if he changed his
residence without a permission from
authorities, rather than punishing loitering
or absence of livelihood. Foreigners who
had been twice expatriated with
prohibition of return to the Russian Empire
and were arrested in Russia again were
also recognized as vagrants. Punishments
were harsh: According to Ulozhenie, the
set of currently empowered laws, a
vagrant who could not elaborate on his
kinship, standing, or permanent residence,
or gave false evidence, was sentenced to
4-year imprisonment and subsequent exile
to Siberia or another far-off province.

Soviet Union

In the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (1960),

which came into force on 1 January 1961,
systematic vagrancy (that which was
identified more than once) was punishable
by up to two years' imprisonment (section
209).[9]

This continued until 5 December 1991,

when Section 209 was repealed and
vagrancy ceased to be a criminal
offence.[10]
Russian Federation

At present, vagrancy is not a criminal

offence in Russia, but it is an offence for
someone over 18 to induce a juvenile (one
who has not reached that age) to
vagrancy, according to Chapter 20, Section
151 of the Criminal Code of the Russian
Federation. The note, introduced by the
Federal Law No. 162 of 8 December 2003,
provides that the section does not apply, if
such act is performed by a parent of the
juvenile under harsh life circumstances
due to the loss of livelihood or the
absence of living place.
United Kingdom

The Pass Room at Bridewell, c. 1808. At this time

paupers from outside London apprehended by the
authorities could be imprisoned for seven days
before being sent back to their own parish.

The Ordinance of Labourers 1349 was the

first major vagrancy law in England and
Wales. The ordinance sought to increase
the available workforce following the Black
Death in England by making idleness
(unemployment) an offence. A vagrant
was a person who could work but chose
not to, and having no fixed abode or lawful
occupation, begged. Vagrancy was
punishable by human branding or
whipping. Vagrants were distinguished
from the impotent poor, who were unable
to support themselves because of
advanced age or sickness. In the
Vagabonds Act 1530, Henry VIII decreed
that "beggars who are old and incapable of
working receive a beggar's licence. On the
other hand, [there should be] whipping and
imprisonment for sturdy vagabonds. They
are to be tied to the cart-tail and whipped
until the blood streams from their bodies,
then they are to swear on oath to go back
to their birthplace or to serve where they
have lived the last three years and to 'put
themselves to labour'. For the second
arrest for vagabondage the whipping is to
be repeated and half the ear sliced off; but
for the third relapse the offender is to be
executed as a hardened criminal and
enemy of the common weal."[11]

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."[12]
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.[13] 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 of 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
(transportation) of "obdurate idlers" to
"such parts beyond the seas as shall be […]
assigned by the Privy Council".[14] 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:

James 1: Any one wandering

about and begging is declared a
rogue and a vagabond. Justices
of the peace in petty sessions are
authorised to have them
publicly whipped and for the
first offence to imprison them
for 6 months, for the second for
2 years. Whilst in prison they
are to be whipped as much and
as often as the justices of the
peace think fit…

Incorrigible and dangerous

rogues are to be branded with
an R on the left shoulder and set
to hard labour, and if they are
caught begging again, to be
executed without mercy. These
statutes, legally binding until the
beginning of the 18th century,
were only repealed by 12 Anne,
c. 23.[15]
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.[16] 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.[16] 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)[17] 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).[18]

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'.[19]
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 magistrates had led to
abuses of the system. Due to the Poor
Laws, vagrants to receive and 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.[19]
Based on the findings and
recommendations from the 1821 House of
Commons Select on Vagrancy,[19] 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.[20] 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.[21]
United States

This section does not cite any sources.

Learn more

Political cartoon by Art Young, The Masses, 1917.

Colonists imported British vagrancy laws

when they settled in North America.
Throughout the colonial and early national
periods, vagrancy laws were used to police
the mobility and economic activities of the
poor. People experiencing homelessness
and people of color were especially
vulnerable to arrest as a vagrant.
Thousands of inhabitants of colonial and
early national America were incarcerated
for vagrancy, usually for terms of 30 to 60
days, but occasionally longer.[22]

After the American Civil War, some

Southern states passed Black Codes, laws
that tried to control the hundreds of
thousands of freed slaves. In 1866, the
state of Virginia, fearing that it would be
"overrun with dissolute and abandoned
characters", passed an Act Providing for
the Punishment of Vagrants. Homeless or
unemployed persons could be forced into
labour on public or private works, for very
low pay, for a statutory maximum of three
months; if fugitive and recaptured, they
must serve the rest of their term at
minimum subsistence, wearing ball and
chain. In effect, though not in declared
intent, the Act criminalized attempts by
impoverished freedpeople to seek out their
own families and rebuild their lives. The
commanding general in Virginia, Alfred H.
Terry, condemned the Act as a form of
entrapment, the attempted reinstitution of
"slavery in all but its name". He forbade its
enforcement. It is not known how often it
was applied, or what was done to prevent
its implementation, but it remained statute
in Virginia until 1904.[23]

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. The
criminal statutes of law in Louisiana
specifically criminalize vagrancy as
associating with prostitutes, being a
professional gambler, being a habitual
drunk, or living on the social welfare
benefits or pensions of others.[24] This law
establishes as vagrants all those healthy
adults who are not engaged in gainful
employment.

In the 1960s, laws proven unacceptably

broad and vague were 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.[25][26]

In the U.S., some local officials encourage

vagrants to move away instead of
arresting them. The word vagrant is often
conflated with the term homeless person.
Prosecutions for vagrancy are rare, being
replaced by prosecutions for specific
offenses such as loitering.

See also
Anti-homelessness legislation
Flâneur as a localized drifter.
Hobo
Homelessness
Knight-errant, a wandering knight
Musha shugyō, a samurai's personal
quest
Ronin, a wandering, masterless samurai
Simple living
Squatting
 Status crime
Vagabond (disambiguation)
Vagrancy Act (disambiguation)
Vogelfrei
Parasitism (social offense)

References
1. "vagrant - Definition of vagrant in
English by Oxford Dictionaries" .
Oxford Dictionaries - English.
2. Definition of vagabond from Oxford
Dictionaries Online
3. The Discovery of Witchcraft (London,
1584) by Reginald Scot
4. "Evangelii Gaudium : Apostolic
Exhortation on the Proclamation of
the Gospel in Today's World (24
November 2013) - Francis" .
w2.vatican.va.
5. Original definition: "se, joka ilman
elatusta omista varoistaan tahi toisen
huolenpidon kautta työttömänä
kuljeksii harjoittaen siveetöntä ja
säädytöntä elämää..."
6. "Teema: Irtolaisuus – Portti" .
wiki.narc.fi.
7. The unsettled, "asocials" University
of Minnesota
8. Ayaß, Wolfgang (1992). Das
Arbeitshaus Breitenau. Bettler,
Landstreicher, Prostituierte, Zuhälter
und Fürsorgeempfänger in der
Korrektions- und Landarmenanstalt
Breitenau (1874–1949). Kassel.
ISBN 978-3881226707.
9. Закон РСФСР от 27.10.1960 «Об
утверждении Уголовного кодекса
РСФСР» (вместе с «Уголовным
кодексом РСФСР») // Свод законов
РСФСР. – т. 8, – с. 497, 1988 //
Ведомости ВС РСФСР. – 1960. – №
40. – ст. 591
10. Закон «О внесении изменений и
дополнений в Уголовный кодекс
РСФСР, Уголовно-процессуальный
кодекс РСФСР и кодекс РСФСР об
административных
правонарушениях» jn 5.12.1991 №
1982-I // Ведомости Съезда НД РФ
и ВС РФ, N 52, 26.12.91, ст. 1867
11. Marx, Karl (1976). Capital Volume I.
Ernest Mandel, Ben Fowkes. England:
Pelican Books. p. 896. ISBN 978-0-14-
044568-8.
12. An Act for the Punishing of
Vagabonds, 1 Edward VI, c. 3
13. 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica,
Theatre
14. An Act for the Punishment of
Vagabonds, 14 Elizabeth I, c. 4, 5
15. Marx, Karl (1976). Capital Volume I.
England: Pelican Books. pp. 898–99.
ISBN 978-0-14-044568-8.
16. Hitchcock, Tim; Crymble, Adam;
Falcini, Louise (13 December 2014).
"Loose, idle and disorderly: vagrant
removal in late eighteenth-century
Middlesex". Social History. 39 (4):
509–27.
doi:10.1080/03071022.2014.975943
. hdl:2299/15233 .
17. Hammond, J L; Barbara Hammond
(1912). The Village Labourer 1760-
1832. London: Longman Green & Co.
p. 19.
18. Polanyi, Karl, and Robert Morrison
MacIver. The great transformation.
Vol. 5. Boston: Beacon Press, 1957.
p.168
19. "Report from the Select Committee
on The Existing Laws Relating to
Vagrant" . U.K Parliamentary Papers.
1821. Retrieved 4 May 2018.
20. "The Vagrancy Act 1824 (as originally
enacted)" (PDF). Legislation.Gov.UK.
Retrieved 4 May 2018.
21. "The Vagrancy Act 1824 (current
version)" . legislation.gov.uk.
Retrieved 6 May 2018.
22. O'Brassill-Kulfan, Kristin (2019).
Vagrants and Vagabonds: Poverty
and Mobility in the Early American
Republic. NYU Press. ISBN 978-1-
4798-4525-5.
23. Tarter, B. Vagrancy Act of 1866, 2015,
August 25, in Encyclopedia Virginia
[1] retrieved March 30 2018
24. LA Rev Stat § 14:107,
http://legis.la.gov/legis/Law.aspx?
d=78260
25. Legal Opinion 2008-1 (On Aggressive
Panhandling) Nashville, February 20,
2008
26. Aggressive Panhandling &
Solicitation – It’s a Crime and You
Can Help! City of Minneapolis

Further reading
Beier, A.L.; Ocobock, Paul, eds. (2008).
Cast Out: Vagrancy and Homelessness
in Global and Historical Perspective
(1st ed.). Athens, Ohio: Ohio University
Press. ISBN 978-0-89-680-262-9.
Fumerton, Patricia (2006). Unsettled:
The Culture of Mobility and the Working
Poor in Early Modern England . Chicago,
 Ill.: University of Chicago Press.
ISBN 978-0-22-626955-9.
O'Brassill-Kulfan, Kristin (2019).
Vagrants and Vagabonds: Poverty and
Mobility in the Early American Republic .
New York, NY: New York University
Press. ISBN 9781479845255.

External links
Encyclopædia Britannica Article on
Vagrancy
http://www.gevangenismuseum.be/welk
om/home
Retrieved from
"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?
title=Vagrancy&oldid=914268612"

Last edited 3 days ago by Mauls

Content is available under CC BY-SA 3.0 unless

otherwise noted.