A Historical Analysis of the Law of Vagrancy

Abstract

For more than two decades William Chambliss's analysis of vagrancy law has provided criminologists with historical evidence to support class‐based explanations for the development of criminal law. Chambliss's use of the historical record, however, is suggestive more than it is conclusive, and recent studies of vagrancy law have exposed important shortcomings in his model. In fact, a systematic examination of the history of vagrancy law reveals that Chambliss's analysis is flawed. Thus. Criminologists should not continue to cite Chambliss's article as an authoritative source on the historical development of criminal law.

The rate of surplus value and crime. A theoretical and empirical examination of Marxian economic theory and criminology

“…Adler 1986Adler , 1989Chambliss 1964Chambliss , 1984Hindus 1980;Monkkonen 1983Monkkonen , 1981Harring 1983Harring , 1977. Lizotte et al (1982) analysis of the association between police strength and the rate of surplus value in Chicago lends additional support to the contention that increases in the rate of surplus value are related to increased attempts to control crime committed by marginal groups.…”

Evaluating Court Statistics as a Data Source for Studying Nineteenth-Century Crime

“…Beyond changes in the administration of justice, an increase in crime may in part reflect the criminalization of previously unregulated behavior (see Boritch and Hagan 1987). Moreover, beyond changes in law, change in arrest rates (overall or for specific offenses) may reflect shifts in police policy or practice due to changing administrative priorities, resource allocations, or community standards (see Adler 1989;Ferdinand 1972;Monkkonen 1981). These factors obviously affect the number and type of cases that filter down to courts and consequently affect courtbased measures of crime.…”

Race, class and persistent coloniality: US policing as liberal pacification

“…At the same time, law enforcement afforded an opportunity extensively to intervene in the lives of working-class people, patrolling the line between independent workers and the dependent, criminalised poor. More often than not this occurred through the enforcement of sweeping vagrancy statutes that were modelled on or even directly taken over from what Marx (1887: 522) called ‘a bloody legislation against vagabondage’ that was enacted throughout Western Europe form the 15th century in order to crack down on people who were forcibly dispossessed through primitive accumulation (see also Adler 1989; Chambliss 1964). Until the Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional at the beginning of the 1970s, vagrancy laws afforded the police a lot of legal leeway to come down hard on undesirables:Armed with a roving license to arrest, officials employed vagrancy laws for a breath-taking array of purposes: to force the local poor to work or suffer for their support; to keep out poor or suspicious strangers, to suppress differences that might be dangerous; to stop crimes before they were committed; to keep racial minorities, political troublemakers, and nonconforming rebels at bay.…”