Vagrancy is the condition of a person who
wanders from place to place homeless without regular employment or income,
referred to as a vagrant, vagabond, rogue, tramp or drifter. Vagrants usually
live in poverty and support themselves by begging, temporary work, petty theft,
garbage scraping or, where available, welfare.
Historically, vagrancy in Western societies
was associated with petty crime, begging and lawlessness, and punishable by law
by imprisonment, forced labor, forced military service, or confinement to
dedicated labor houses. The word vagrant is often conflated with the term
homeless person, which does not necessarily include the wandering component. 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.
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.
History
Labels
In the Middle Ages and Early Modern Period,
the members of numerous different subordinate and extra-ordinary social groups
were described as moving people (also traveling people or travelers). The range
of the lawless outsiders expanded and differentiated in the Middle Ages.
Members of the "lower people" - that is, the social underclasses -
outside the hierarchy and without a permanent residence were regarded as
varende lute, a derogatory term that was connoted with crime and dishonesty (dishonesty).
Historical names for the members of this
socially, culturally and ethnically heterogeneous population of summarily as
"homeless rabble" Stigmatisierten were z. B. "Gängler",
"Landfahrer", "vagrants", "Landläufer" (see the
term used in the Netherlands until today landloper) or "vagabonds". From
the point of view of a work-shy, assumed to be a collective personality trait,
they were also considered "foreign idlers ". In the 19th century, the
term "Wanderer" came on, later also "non-sedentary".
"Driving" is not to be understood
in its present meaning. Until well into the 19th century, when caravans were
the means of transport and accommodation, "travelers" were mostly on
foot with perhaps a two-wheeled cart as a dog team or on their own.
In place of the folkloric term
"travelers" is common European, but also as a common today's German
self-title travelers. Summary names for the descendants of the historical
groups are self- as as foreign name in French gens du voyage, in the
Anglo-Saxon language Travelers, in Swedish or Norwegian resandefolket or
travelers and in the Netherlands
Forms of Inclusion
Socially and economically, the members of
the minority, in contrast to the rules on the compulsion and exclusion of the
authorities and professional corporations, were in fact closely linked with the
majority population. Their economic contributions, above all to supplying the
rural population with goods and services, were indispensable. Their
entertainment offers were generally appreciated and often formed the focal
point of rural and urban festivities.
There was a vast number of such groups. The
affiliations overlapped. The lists of case groups in the defense regulations
give a picture of the variety of emergency operations with which those affected
tried to survive in economic niches. For example, in the year 1586, a
Siegerländer recording and tolerance ban counted on:
" Gypsies, tramps, homeless gardeners,
gangsters with Geygen, Leyren and other side play, rascals, patronage,
spokespersons, land beggars trained for idleness, sturgeons, Zanbrechers, and
all kinds of things are all over Verretherey, murder, steal, steal, burn and
other misfortunes abstarcted, item fortune-tellers, Teuffelsfenger,
Christallenseher, Segensprecher, which help themselves before physicians,
humans and viehe, give out. "
A regulatory police writing of the late
18th Century called
" Scheer grinder, port binding, Kessler,
Pfannenfliker, Kannengiesser, Wannenfliker, basket makers, brush-makers,
Bücherbeschläger, buckle and Glockengiesser, sawing Feiler, drill maker,
skinners and executioner, Kümmig-, oil, herbs, Wurzeln- and powder
distributors, comb, Leist - or Zwekschneider, Hechelspizer,
Tabakspfeiffenmacher, Hutschwärzer, printer, musicians, entertainers and Krämer
with a variety of goods. "
Cultural and Ethnic Diversity
In addition to since the end of the 18th
century sometimes referred to as Jenische designated crowded out of mainstream
society "propelled" of the various scenic and national origin
included as each ethnic autonomous groups traveling Roma and "Schnorr"
- or "beggar-Jews" to this " Subculture of the street ".
In view of the heterogeneity of this part
of the population, it is not possible to estimate the share of the total
population, especially of the whole of Europe ,
more than extremely roughly. Five to ten percent, according to the literature,
a middle estimate for the 18th century. He was able to rise rapidly in the
course of the regularly occurring hunger crises and war devastation.
Demarcations
Although a clear demarcation is impossible
to distinguish from the historic traveling people groups whose relatives
although also pursued a labor migration in narrower or wider circulation areas,
but were incorporated into a subject group, and therefore not
"abandoned": wandering journeyman (artisans on the Walz, also
Freireisende), unzünftige artisans (Bönhasen), far-traveling merchants and
stationary beggars.
Today's forms of acquisition migration and
horizontal mobility - movement in geographical space, not in the area of
hierarchical social stratification - do not capture the construct of
"driving people", even though there are structural similarities and
similarities.
Since marginalization and exclusion
processes and their consolidation are not ethnic or regional peculiarities, but
universal and supernatural, there were and are socioculturally similar
population groups as those in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period under
"driving people" subsumed elsewhere, such as the Burakumin in Japan,
the Sarmastaari in Baluchistan or the Gadawan Kura ("hyena humans"),
who travel through Nigeria as jugglers and miracle healers.
In Switzerland
In settled, ordered communities, vagrants
have been historically characterised as outsiders, 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.
Many world religions, both in history and
today, have strong vagrant traditions. In Christianity, Jesus is seen in the
Bible teaching compassion for beggars, prostitutes, and the disenfranchised
himself, telling his followers to give away their possessions and becoming
wanderers themselves. These traditions dominated early Christian movements and
were encouraged by notable figures such as St. Paul Near East , as
preserved by Gnosticism, Hesychasm, and various esoteric practices. The
Catholic church also teaches compassion for people living in vagrancy and many
Christian denominations recognize various aspects of ascetic teachings that are
found in scripture.
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.
"For the determination of the land
vehicle characteristic, the nomadic way of life is decisive, which manifests
itself in the fact that a person without a permanent residence or despite his
own residence not only moves around unsteadily in the country in the Gypsy
way."
This Landfahrerordnung was until 1970
Bavarian state law.
In other states, Bavarian legislation was
perceived as exemplary, but not adopted. A nationwide approach did not exist.
Statistical suspected criminal activities that were accused of Sinti and Roma
could not be confirmed: in 1954, 1,743 Sinti and Roma were found among 1.1
million suspects nationwide. In sum, their number was too small to be able to
continue the previous police practices from before 1945.
The travelers continued to be discriminated
against as far as they could be concealed from the public. In North
Rhine-Westphalia, for example, since 1954, the provincial government has
promoted an administrative practice to deny Sinti and Roma German citizenship
by requiring them to provide detailed documentary proof that they were
rightfully holding a German passport. This was not easy to prove, given the
administrative action of 1933-1945. The compensation offices and police
authorities consistently drew on the expertise of officials who had been
involved in the persecution and murder of Sinti and Roma before 1945.
It was not until the 1980s that the
systematic recording of persons and the constant harassment of
"gypsies" by the police authorities became more prominent in the eyes
of a liberal public. In Hamburg Wiesbaden
After the reunification of Germany
At least since the 1990s, even the
inclusion of the Sinti and Roma in the state official commemoration of the Nazi
murder practice has taken place. Since 2013, individual representatives of the
Federal Court of Justice have distanced themselves from the prevailing case law
of the 1950s, without having so far been formally revised judgments.
Legal, social and economic exclusion
Some of the population was poor and unable
to access their own resources in times of need. Those who had no access to the
scarce municipal support usually slipped into nothingness and were referred to
an emergency economy. In crisis situations, the number of these people jumped.
A large proportion of the underclass were so constantly threatened by
homelessness and nothingness. The permanent emergency situation forced the
members of the vagrant population part usually exert more activities side by
side or in the temporal sequence and often at the same time begging, To ensure
survival were also typical forms of small delinquency. Related abusive names
were in the vernacular ("Riemenstecher" or " bag cutter "
at church festivals and fairs).
State toleration, toleration and
prohibition of admission legally excluded vague poverty from organized subjects
and forced a life of illegality on the streets and in the forests. They
extended to the contact and work prohibition, this formally secured also by
admission prohibitions into the professional corporations. As part of the
administrative expansion of European countries, the number of exclusion rules
since the second half of the 17th Century increased sharply.
The legal exclusion was justified with the
general suspicion of criminal or at least harm community behavior. A remainder
of the strict legal exclusion remained "well into the 20th century with
the offense of vagrancy received". At least in German-speaking Central Europe , the corresponding regulations were
removed from criminal law in the course of social and legal reforms in the last
quarter of a century.
In the poverty society, the out-of-state
and subordinate population groups continued to receive increasing numbers of people
from the stationary lower classes during economic crises and military
campaigns. Since a reintegration remained largely excluded into mainstream
society or even a social advancement, the membership began to migrate poverty
for generations continued time. It solidified in a " culture of poverty
".
Vagrancy laws
In the first version of the national Penal
Code (Sr) that was established in 1809, vagrancy was included as a crime,
roaming without demonstrable means of existence was made punishable. The idea
behind this was that someone who was strong enough to travel around was also
strong enough to work. That there was often no employment was ignored. The
vagrants who were arrested were often 'employed' in the east of the Netherlands
In the 20th century the number of
convictions dropped sharply: In 1904, 1920 people were condemned, in 1938 710
and in 1963 only 27. In 2000, vagrancy in the Netherlands
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.
In premodern Finland
and Sweden Sweden Finland
In Germany
In the Weimar Republic
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 Siberia or another far-off province.
In the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (1960)
(ru), 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).
This continued until 5 December 1991, when
Section 209 was repealed and vagrancy ceased to be a criminal offence.
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
In France
The Ordinance of Labourers 1349 was the first
major vagrancy law in England
and Wales England
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."
In England ,
the Vagabonds Act 1572 passed under Elizabeth
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". At the time, this meant
exile for a fixed term to the Virginia Company's plantations in America
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.'
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 Britain
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 overly 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.
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
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 Virginia
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
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
Nevertheless, new local laws in the U.S.
In the U.S.
Source from Wikipedia
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