Scrap the Act: the Case for Repealing the Vagrancy Act (1824)
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Scrap the Act: The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act (1824) This campaign is supported by: ii Scrap the Act: The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act (1824) iii Author Acknowledgements Nick Morris works in the Policy and External Affairs The views in this report are those of Crisis only but in the course of writing directorate at Crisis. it we benefited from valued contributions: • The Crisis project team: Matt Downie, Rosie Downes, Martine Martin, Simon Trevethick, Cuchulainn Sutton-Hamilton, and Nick Morris; and our colleague Lily Holman-Brant for helping produce this report. • George Olney from Crisis for providing the stories told to him by people on the street who were affected by the Act and directors from the Crisis Skylight services across England and Wales who shared their contacts and stories. • Campaign partners Homeless Link, St Mungo’s, Centrepoint, Cymorth Cymru, The Wallich, and Shelter Cymru for their help developing this report and the campaign to repeal the Act. • Lord Hogan-Howe for this report’s foreword and for chairing the multi- agency roundtable discussion in April 2019 in the UK Supreme Court (details in Appendix 1). Photo credit Chris McAndrew, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported licence. • Mike Schwarz, Bindmans LLP, for giving the legal advice in Appendix 2. • Professor Nick Crowson for sharing historical data about the Vagrancy Act’s use. • Cllr Ruth Bush and Matthias Kelly QC, for sharing their experiences of the End the Vagrancy Act campaign. • Prison Reform Trust for helping analyse the recent data. • Hannah Hart for providing advice and connections to policing and Crown Prosecution Service contacts who briefed us on police and criminal justice processes. • Special thanks to Layla Moran MP for her leadership and awareness raising on the Vagrancy Act. ISBN 978-1-78519-064-3 CRI0220_REPORT iv Scrap the Act: The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act (1824) v Contents Figures and Tables Figures and tables v Chapter 3 Foreword vi Table 1 Vagrancy Act prosecutions (cases proceeded against) 12 Executive summary viii in England and Wales, 2008-2018 Graph 1a Vagrancy Act offences (total of the three offences) 13 1. Rough sleeping and enforcement in England and Wales today 1 Graph 1b Begging 13 Vagrancy Act offences today 3 Graph 1c Sleeping out 14 Graph 1d Being in enclosed premises for an unlawful purpose 14 2. The historical background to the Vagrancy Act 4 Graph 2 Prosecutions under the Act compared with 16 Three centuries of law-making led to the Vagrancy Act 4 rough sleeping levels ‘A measure simply of repression’ 5 Table 2 Percentage of cases in which a person is found guilty in 16 The extraordinary survival of the Act 5 prosecutions (cases proceeded against) and guilty cases Wide range of uses for the Act 8 that result in fines, 2008-18 Conclusion 9 Chapter 6 3. The evidence of how and why it is used today 10 Table 3 Vagrancy Act offences and alternative legislation 43 Changing nature of policing and dealing with trauma 10 Formal enforcement of the Act varies 11 Appendix 2 The Act doesn’t have to be used formally to have an effect 18 Table 4 Relevant alternative legislation to the Vagrancy Act 58 What people affected by the Act say 18 Threats and harm to people on the streets 22 4. The potential effect of repeal on policing 25 5. More effective approaches to the challenges 30 Scaled up assertive outreach and support in England and Wales 32 More effective responses to anti-social behaviour and crime 33 6. The Vagrancy Act and legal considerations 39 Vagrancy law in Scotland and elsewhere 39 Legal advice given to Crisis on England and Wales 41 7. The way forward 50 Conclusion: scrapping the Act 53 Appendix 1: Roundtable discussion on repeal 55 Appendix 2: Legal advice from Mike Schwarz, Bindmans LLP 57 Appendix 3: Draft Vagrancy (Repeal) Bill presented by Layla Moran MP 63 vi Scrap the Act: The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act (1824) Foreword vii Foreword At its most basic level of definition, modern policing is about working in I do not believe that being homeless should be a crime, or that the public want partnership with local communities, businesses and the general public to keep to see people in that situation automatically criminalised. The Vagrancy Act people safe from harm. The law is our shared framework for conduct, providing implies that it is the responsibility of the police primarily to respond to these an agreed set of guidelines on what constitutes criminality and what does not. issues, but that is a view firmly rooted in 1824. Nowadays, we know that multi- It changes as our values, learning and priorities change. agency support and the employment of frontline outreach services can make a huge difference in helping people overcome the barriers that would otherwise Everything about the Vagrancy Act, including its name, signals that it comes from keep them homeless. a very different era. Technically, it even predates the police service as we know it, with Sir Robert Peel’s formative Metropolitan Police Act only passed in 1829. Individuals who have become homeless are in an incredibly risky situation. And while it has been my experience, gained across decades of service, that the Rough sleepers in particular are almost 17 times more likely to have been victims Vagrancy Act is rarely used today and only then as a last resort, the point is that it of violence and 15 times more likely to have suffered verbal abuse compared is still used. to the general public, according to Crisis figures.1 Yet, while the Vagrancy Act remains in law, these people are actively discouraged from engaging with the With the Vagrancy Act set for review as part of the Government’s Rough Sleeping police for fear of enforcement measures being taken. This does not help anyone. Strategy, the time has undoubtedly come to explore how this two-hundred- year-old piece of legislation sits alongside our modern legal framework, and to This report provides an overview of how the Vagrancy Act has been used examine its impact on the people most likely to be affected by it. historically and the challenges involved with its use today, alongside a comprehensive overview of alternate options, with the case for repeal very Frontline police are called upon to make judgement calls about vulnerable clearly made. My hope is that it will bring the issue into a sharp perspective and people who are either living on the streets, or living out of unsuitable temporary ensure that, when a decision comes to be made about the future of the Vagrancy accommodation, every day. There is a lot of pressure to act on issues like rough Act in England and Wales, it is the right one. sleeping and begging, but if the evidence shows that criminalisation is more likely to push people away from the support services they need to progress out of the situation, then we can and must do better than relying on this outdated piece of legislation to plug the gaps. Lord Bernard Hogan-Howe QPM, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Service, 2011-2017 1 Sanders, B and Albanese, F (2016), “It’s no life at all”- Rough sleepers’ experiences of violence and abuse on the streets of England and Wales. London: Crisis. viii Scrap the Act: The case for repealing the Vagrancy Act (1824) Executive summary ix The Act set out categories of ‘vagrant’ and to fears in society about people and the punishments they should experiencing the effects of it. Executive receive if they broke the law by sleeping rough, begging, or committed one of the other offences in the Act. The Act’s current use Many observers have commented on summary the looseness of the drafting of the Modern policing has changed Act, particularly its wide definition immensely since the Vagrancy Act of ‘vagrancy’. Over the years, many came into force. Policing and our groups have fallen foul of the law, understanding of the causes of This report looks at the case for repealing the Vagrancy Act including owners of shops displaying homelessness, anti-social behaviour 1824 in England and Wales. People sleeping rough experience ‘obscene prints’, people playing and other associated street activity the most extreme and visible form of homelessness, facing a dice in the streets and, in the 1970s, have improved. There are now young black men were pre-emptively very well evidenced links between greater risk of violence, abuse, and earlier death compared to stopped and searched under the so- vulnerability, trauma, and poverty and the general public. called ‘sus laws’. some of their social effects through people rough sleeping, begging and Policymakers in 1906 noted that other associated street activity. differences in policing practice – not Levels of rough sleeping have increased • The likely effect of repeal on policing. the numbers of vagrants nor the scale However, the Act is still used across substantially during the past decade of populations or areas - determined police force areas in England and and this has been accompanied by • How effective support would involve how many people were subject to the Wales to address these circumstances. an increase in begging prosecutions, better outreach but also a more Act. Although its use is in very gradual The Act’s use has been falling since covered by the Act. nuanced approach to any anti-social decline in the longer term, there have 2014, coinciding with various policy behaviour and crime that is linked to been periodic peaks and troughs, initiatives and the passing of an The evidence says police enforcement rough sleeping and/or begging.