Tough on Criminalizing Begging and Sleeping Rough

Abstract

Abstract Many state and local governments have passed laws that criminalize sleeping rough and passive begging. However, little attention has been directed toward the basic moral question of whether sleeping rough and begging are types of conduct that ought to be criminalized. To answer this question, this paper investigates what the predominant principles of criminalization in the philosophical literature imply in regard to these types of conducts. The paper argues that it is not possible to make a case for the criminalization of rough sleeping and begging by relying on influential versions of the harm principle, legal paternalism, the offense principle nor legal moralism. Neither begging nor sleeping rough is harmful to others in the sense relevant for the harm principle. It is not plausible that criminalizing these types of acts prevents rough sleepers and beggars from causing themselves harm, as the principle of legal paternalism requires. The paper further finds that it is implausible to say that either the offense principle or legal moralism warrant criminalizing the acts of begging or sleeping rough. Moreover, it is argued that the laws against these acts appear to be redundant, and criminalization does not appear to be a necessary means to ensure that people do not rough sleep or beg.