1824 AGAIN AND AGAIN! Or... What Year is it in the United Kingdom?
by Stephen Wilson, one of our reporters abroad
The failure to abolish the 1824 vagrancy bill and the proposed draconian Criminal Justice Bill law which would further criminalize rough sleeping in Britain by huge fines or imprisonment stretches the limits of logic.
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“CRIMINAL JUSTICE BILL 2024: Anyone sleeping rough or looking like they sleep rough can be prosecuted. You could face a fine of up to 2500 pounds and imprisonment.”
So reads a fake sign erected on the embankment on a clear blue sunny day in Southbank, London, where you can catch sight of Parliament across the River Thames.
This sign was put up by the charity 'Crisis' which campaigns to defend the homeless. For the New Criminal Justice bill will actually strengthen than weaken measures by authorities to crack down on rough sleepers. Given the already existing harsh laws such as the 1824 vagrancy act one would have thought that there was no need for such a new law. For according to recent statements by the police, as many as 2412 arrests of the homeless have been made in England and Wales since 2019 under this law.
However, this new proposed Criminal Justice Bill law contains clauses which are even tougher than the vagrancy act of 1824 and that is really saying something. Under the clause 'nuisance rough sleeping' a homeless person can be subject to a staggering 2500 pound fine and up to one month in prison. If the police deem you have 'excessive smell' or are sleeping in a doorway you can be penalized. This is not all! If you look as if you are a rough sleeper or are about to fall asleep you can also be arrested by the police.
Why such a strong backlash against homelessness? There are a few reasons. Some people just don't like the sight of people sleeping rough on the streets. It openly dents the myth that the United Kingdom is an affluent and advanced society where everyone enjoys prosperity. The sight of homeless people lets the cat out of the bag. But there are also many people who are very irritated by the presence of the homeless on the streets. They argue that when they try to withdraw money from cash points they are subject to 'aggressive begging.' They also view the homeless as a threat to law and order. In a word, the homeless disturb the peace. There are some people who are genuinely afraid of the homeless and think they are dangerous drug addicts and alcoholics. The government is attempting to stroke up this exaggerated fear and anxiety which some people feel about the homeless.
However, it is important to grasp the full implications of this proposed Criminal Justice Bill.
Firstly, this law does not in any way solve the problem of homelessness. As Matt Downie of Crisis, a homeless charity states, “Threatening people with fines and prison will not solve homelessness.” On the contrary, it compounds the problem. Giving someone a criminal record spoils their identity. It makes them more unemployable, not less. After being sentenced employers might be even more reluctant to employ such people. In a way, imprisoning the homeless is like putting them on a blacklist. It is like turning them into 'former people.' The experience of Russia proves repression does not work. For many years the police rounded up the homeless and deported them beyond 101 km of Moscow. They ended up in old villages and in forests. Yet they would return to Moscow again like a boomerang.
Secondly, the cost of imprisoning a homeless person is far more than the cost of providing them with a new home. Focus Prison Education estimates that it costs 65,000 pounds to imprison someone. The total cost of imprisoning a homeless person for a month is 68,500 pounds. The charity organization Crisis claims you could use such money to get a homeless person a home of their own. Crisis argues that we could more effectively assist the homeless by using the Housing First solution inspired by Finland where you give the homeless a home right from the start. This, along with on-site support by offering them medical support and aid to find decent work represents a more attractive and viable option than simply 'throwing away the key' by putting people in prison. Crisis has calculated that the cost of ending rough sleeping would amount to 992 million pounds. However, this would actually generate a benefit of 3.2 Billion pounds in terms of the costs avoided. It is high time we viewed homeless people not as a liability, a threat or hopeless cases but as priceless people who would make the United Kingdom a more caring and improved place. They could use their down to earth wisdom to assist other people experiencing so many traumatic problems.
Thirdly, it is illogical to announce the ending of one law 'the Vagrancy act of 1824' while introducing a new bill which is more draconian than the former. So why abolish the former law in the first place? It makes no sense. By any standards the 1824 Vagrancy act was introduced to crack down on homeless beggars and ex-soldiers who had returned from the Napoleonic wars to a country where they could find no work or food. As many as 300,000 from the armed forces returned home. This law, along with harsher laws against poaching {a poacher who was caught with a gun could be hanged} made begging illegal as well as forbade establishing makeshift camps. Those laws were largely an over-hysterical reaction by the authorities against the fear of a revolution breaking out. The days when the United Kingdom appeared to be threatened by a revolution are long gone{if there was such a prospect in 1824 in the first place}. This law is archaic. That it still exists in the statue books beggars belief. But to introduce a new Criminal Justice Bill which turns out to be harsher than this law is also absurd. It is absurd because the law not only can be used against the homeless but anyone innocuously going about their business. For instance, take the law against a person excessively smelling. could be used to arrest someone who is carrying a take away from an Indian Restaurant. The smell of an Indian curry can be especially strong.
The law also states that anyone who looks homeless or are about to sleep rough could be arrested. What criteria does one use to decide this? It sounds very subjective! For instance, the police could even detain a construction worker who was just taking a break or someone who has put on their worst clothes to do the gardening. Do you start stopping and arresting people because they look scruffy or unkempt or can't afford to buy new clothes? What about so many homeless people who just can't find a place to wash their clothes or have a shower? And then there are some people who are just not interested in how they look. Some artists and scientists are so absorbed and devoted to their work they forget about their appearance. They don't regard their appearance as a priority!
So such an ill thought up law represents a threat to the personal freedom of everyone, not just the homeless.
We do not need the passing of the criminal Justice Bill in any form. Nor do we need to keep the 1824 Vagrancy law. What year is it? Is it 1824 or 2024?
The answer is that it's 1824 again and again!