A historical and, in some jurisdictions, still current offense criminalizing homelessness, wandering without a fixed abode or visible means of support, or loitering in public without a lawful purpose, dating back in the English legal tradition to statutes enacted from the fourteenth century onward to control the movement of the poor. Vagrancy laws have been widely criticized and substantially repealed or narrowed in many countries since the mid twentieth century on the grounds that they effectively criminalize poverty and homelessness rather than any specific harmful act, though variants of the offense, and closely related loitering and public nuisance statutes, remain on the books in a number of jurisdictions.
Facts
Typical PenaltyHistorically in England, human branding or whipping 1 Notable ExamplePapachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972) 1 Jurisdiction VariationBelgium repealed its vagrancy law on 12 January 1993 1 Classification
Offense GradeInfraction or Violation 1 Connections
Has Offense Grade
Entity-backed identity for the offense-grade enum value this offense already carries, resolved to a crime concept by an explicit value-to-entity map (phase 3 bucket conversion, docs\design_entity_backed_browse_buckets_20260928.md). The offense-grade fact itself stays on the offense unchanged.
In the Other Atlases
- Also in Geography Atlas: Europe, found in there.
Sources
1. Vagrancy (Wikipedia)
United Kingdom section
Vagrancy was punishable by human branding or whipping.
Belgium section
On 12 January 1993, the Belgian vagrancy law was repealed.
United States section, Post-Civil War
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.
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