The Economics of Anti‐Begging Regulations

I Historical Background you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother. Deuteronomy 15:7-8 There shall be no beggars in our State ... he shall be driven across the border by the country-stewards, to the end that the land may be wholly purged of such a creature. 2 Plato, Laws, Book XI IN MEDIEVAL AND EARLIER TIMES beggars were considered a normal part of the community. Giving alms to beggars was an important Christian duty and helped one achieve salvation (Clark 1994). Consequently, the English did not pass legislation regulating beggars during this time period. However, after the severe labor shortages that followed the Black Plague and continued with the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism, beggars were no longer viewed as normal, but as threats to the social order and national prosperity. Subsequently, the English passed numerous anti-begging laws. Early English anti-begging laws were usually components of larger statutes designed to control labor mobility and wages. The Ordinance of Laborers (1349) did not ban begging; rather, it prohibited giving alms to the able-bodied who refused work (23 Edw. 3 c. 1). The following year, vagrancy was criminalized and the wages and residences of workers were fixed (25 Edw. 3 c. 1). In 1388, English law first distinguished between infirm and able-bodied beggars, initiating the tradition of treating the "worthy" and "unworthy" poor differently (12 Rich. 2). Punishment for begging varied over the centuries and included removal and resettlement, imprisonment, forced labor, branding, whipping, and death (Mitchell 1995). American colonists and early American state governments modeled their vagrancy and anti-begging laws on English statutes (Lacey 1953; Simon 1992). Foote (1956), for example, notes that the basic elements of Pennsylvania's vagrancy law mirrored British laws passed centuries earlier. Adler (1989) argues that the main purpose of early American vagrancy laws was to protect local poor-relief institutions from being overwhelmed by influxes of "the wandering poor" and notes that arrests increased when fewer jobs were available. Stanley (1992) reports that beggars became common following the Civil War. Decreased production and the influx of returning soldiers greatly increased the supply of labor. She argues that beggars no longer reminded people of the possibility of random misfortune, but rather of the problems associated with the increasingly wage-dependent economy. Before the 1950s, courts generally upheld vagrancy laws, which sometimes included restrictions on begging. During the 1960s, legal commentators began to criticize vagrancy laws as vague and as violations of the Due Process Clause (Simon 1992). Both the civil rights movement and the "due process revolution" of the 1960s altered views about laws regulating public behavior; these laws were increasingly seen as threats to individuals' rights (Teir 1993; Mitchell 1995). In the 1970s, federal courts found several vagrancy laws to be unconstitutional since they criminalized status rather than particular actions. (1) Later, some restrictions specific to begging were overturned on the grounds that they violated a citizen's right to free speech. (2) In the face of these court decisions, state governments increasingly turned responsibility for regulating beggars over to city governments. Municipal anti-begging laws have since evolved through the process of court review. The Supreme Court ruled that solicitation to contribute money is protected speech in Schaumberg v. Citizens for a Better Environment (1980), but it also upheld restrictions on where direct solicitations can be made. (3) City regulations on the time, place, or manner of begging have been more resistant to legal challenges than outright bans. (4) Consequently, many U.S. cities have adopted these types of anti-begging regulations. …