The Law that is the Crime: The Vagrancy Act

The Guardian newspaper in the UK revealed that hundreds of homeless people in England and Wales are being persecuted by local authorities. The Vagrancy Act was introduced in 1824, as a big THANK YOU to many of the war veterans who found themselves homeless after the Napoleonic Wars. Their recompense was simply being hounded out of existence by the law. Having a home is like having a cabin on board a ship; being homeless is like being forced to live on deck at the mercy of the elements, but - as if that were not enough of a hell - the peak of human depravity decreed that sleeping on deck would be illegal. Now, even the dimmest person can work out this logic... There are three possible spaces: a) the cabin b) the deck and public places c) the sea. If 'a' is denied by circumstances and 'b' by the law, what is left if not the sea? At least, since 1961, suicide is no longer illegal in the UK, so now the poor wretch can jump upright into that ocean. 

Homeless in a Big City

There are few things in this world that are more sinister and despicable that this law and the authorities that make use of it to hound people who should be the focus of our assistance, not our contempt. The penalties can include hefty fines and imprisonment, as well as harassment. The Guardian article discussing the findings, pointed out that: 

Cases include a man jailed for four months for breaching a criminal behaviour order (CBO) in Gloucester for begging – about which the judge admitted “I will be sending a man to prison for asking for food when he was hungry” – and a man fined £105 after a child dropped £2 in his sleeping bag.

The good news is that Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon has presented a Bill to repeal the Act. Its second reading is well overdue, but with Brexit on the horizon, it may be a good while yet before her amendment is voted on. Writing in The Guardian last January she highlights the shame of the current situation. The shocking thing is that she had already presented the Bill last year, only for it to be "halted" in its progress by Conservative MPs. 

Apart from the fact that there is no excuse for a country like England to be witnessing a rise in homelessness, mistreating those people, on top of neglecting them, is what is truly criminal.