In Vagrant Nation, Risa Goluboff answers that question by showing how constitutional challenges to vagrancy laws shaped the multiple movements that made “the 1960s.” Vagrancy laws were so broad and flexible that they made it possible for the police to arrest anyone out of place: Beats and hippies Communists and Vietnam War protestors racial minorities and civil rights activists gays, single women, and prostitutes. Yet by the end of the 1960s, vagrancy laws were discredited and American society was fundamentally transformed. A person could be arrested for sporting a beard, making a speech, or working too little. The criminal justice system-and especially the age-old law of vagrancy-served not only to maintain safety and order but also to enforce conventional standards of morality and propriety. In 1950s America, it was remarkably easy for police to arrest almost anyone for almost any reason.
#Vagrant laws free
His most recent article, about his visit to a remote FARC camp, is called In a Rebel Camp in Colombia, Marx and Free Love Reign. Since the downfall of vagrancy law, battles over what, if anything, should replace it, like battles over the legacy of the sixties transformations themselves, are far from over.With Risa Goluboff, Professor of Law and History at the University of Virginia School of Law and author of the book Vagrant Nation: Police Power, Constitutional Change, and the Making of the 1960s.Īnd Nick Casey, Andes Bureau Chief of The New York Times based in Caracas.
The Supreme Court's 1972 decision declaring vagrancy laws unconstitutional continues to shape conflicts between police power and constitutional rights, including clashes over stop-and-frisk, homelessness, sexual freedom, and public protests. It also demonstrates how ordinary people, with the help of lawyers and judges, can change the meaning of the Constitution. In describing those challenges, Vagrant Nation offers a new, integrated history of the civil rights, peace, gay rights, welfare rights, sexual, and cultural revolutions. As hundreds of these "vagrants" and their lawyers challenged vagrancy laws in court, the laws became a flashpoint for debates about radically different visions of order and freedom. Vagrant Nation answers that question by showing how constitutional challenges to vagrancy laws shaped the multiple movements that made "the 1960s." Vagrancy laws were so broad and flexible that they made it possible for the police to arrest anyone out of place: Beats and hippies Communists and Vietnam War protestors racial minorities and civil rights activists gays, single women, and prostitutes. The criminal justice system - and especially the age-old law of vagrancy - served not only to maintain safety and order but also to enforce conventional standards of morality and propriety.
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