Vagrancy is a crime that originated from the words vagrant or vagabond. A vagrant is typically a person who wanders from place to place without a home or without a regular place of employment or an income. Most of the time, vagrants are homeless people who wander in large cities and solicit money from those who pass by. While it is not technically illegal to be homeless throughout most of the United States, vagrancy can be a crime. Constitutionally, it cannot be a crime to be poor or without a home, but it is sometimes considered a misdemeanor in many states to be a vagrant.
Vagrants are normally defined as idle and refusing to work through capable of still doing so. They live on the charity of others even through charity is not necessary as they could support themselves. Up until the 1970s, vagrancy was used by the police to charge people who were suspicious but had not done anything blatantly wrong. At this time. The police would charge a man or woman with vagrancy in order to warrant an arrest when there was no other crime to charge the individual with.
Court decisions have repeatedly struck down vagrancy laws as unconstitutional and generally too vague. Most of the time, vagrants are not described as homeless people. Communities normally suspect vagrants because they are not employed, and may be suspicious that a vagrant will commit a theft crime. In the past, there have been times that vagrancy laws were widely abused. At the end of the U.S. Civil War, freed slaves were released from their homes but then had nowhere to go because they did not have any places where they could live or find employment. As a result, they would wander, and then be charged with vagrancy.
Because the African Americans couldn't typically pay their fine they were sent to prison or hired out to private employers. This caused the United States to redefine vagrancy and make sure that the court cannot charge a person with vagrancy when they have not committed any criminal actions. Nowadays, those who commit vagrancy are typically also charged with public drunkenness, prostitution, loitering, or another crime that has been expressly written into the state penal code.
Because vagrancy is often coupled with one of these offenses, the charges for vagrancy are not typically very harsh. According to US Legal, vagrancy can lead to a fine or several months in jail. Those who conspire with criminals, or become a public nuisance are often charged with this crime. Vagrants typically move from place to place, so the laws now protect many homeless persons from being charged with this crime without just reason to do so. Lawmakers claim that vagrancy charges are necessary to preserve public order, but some advocates for the homeless and poor say that the vagrancy laws can be abused and used as a power trip among the upper class.
One of the common crimes that are associated with vagrancy involves camping on sidewalks or in some public locations. Jurisdictions have the right to enact reasonable bans against the homeless regarding where they are allowed to sleep. Those who violate unlawful camping ordinances can be charged with the crime, and those who sleep on the street can frequently be arrested for this offense. If you or your loved one have been charged with a vagrancy crime, you will certainly want an attorney on your side.
Because vagrancy has been debated time and again and because the crime is only valid in certain circumstances, you will want a criminal defense lawyer to get involved in your case and carefully scrutinize the situation to see if your constitutional rights are being violated by your charge. With the right attorney there to help you, you may be able to avoid the punishments that may be associated with your offense.
