Vagrancy Offences

Question

It is important that policing plays its part in making sure that our public spaces are safe and feel safe for everyone.  We welcome the opportunity to further explore this area of public policy and the most effective policing role within it. We would advocate for a wider ‘Prevention First’ community safety approach to addressing the issue of homelessness, rather than a police-led enforcement solution.

Changes to legislation that consolidated these approaches would be a welcome development. There may remain a case for an element of enforcement where it is clear that other approaches have or would fail and behaviours are having a detrimental impact on wider community safety.

At present, Police and Community Safety Partnerships have the discretion to use local funding to provide alternative interventions focusing on health, well-being and social care needs.  These multi-disciplinary community based approaches present the opportunity to more effectively address the issue of homelessness than enforcement in the interests of wider community wellbeing.   We understand that there are complex reasons why a person may experience homelessness.

Neighbourhood police officers work in partnership with a wide range of other agencies to develop initiatives to address homelessness and prevent harm, beyond the narrow remit of enforcement.

Answer

I will now address the detail of each sub-question in turn:

1/         In Northern Ireland, the main contemporary use of legislative provisions is in response to begging.  Police officers do not, as a matter of course, use powers under the Vagrancy Act to address the general issue of homelessness. 

The offence of begging is found under Section 3 of the Vagrancy Act 1847 and carries the power of arrest.  Section 3 of the Vagrancy Act 1847 states:

“Every person …. Placing themselves in any public place, street, highway, court or passage to beg or gather alms shall be guilty of an offence.”

It is important to recognise that not all rough sleepers are involved in anti-social behaviour and criminality, such as begging or aggressive begging, and not all street beggars are homeless or rough sleepers.  It is, however, recognised that issues may be interrelated in some cases.

The visible impact of rough sleeping, begging and other anti-social behaviours has drawn concerns from the business and retail communities who have reported an impact owing to changes to shopping and outdoor queuing systems during the “Covid” period.  This has resulted in increased opportunities for begging and aggressive begging, leaving some retail premises and customers feeling vulnerable.

2/         The table below illustrates the number of persons arrested and processed through custody for offences under the Vagrancy Act In the period between 1 January 2018 and 28 February 2021. It should be noted that this number does not include persons arrested and subsequently street bailed.

Larger towns and cities will tend to experience higher levels of visible homelessness through the presence of rough sleepers and Northern Ireland would follow this pattern.  Belfast faces particular issues in relation to homelessness.  For the purposes of this response, a dip sample of incidents in Belfast Area was conducted.  This revealed that in the period between November 2020 and February 2021, a total of 21 reports were made to the Public Prosecution Service for begging offences, involving 16 different people.  Not all of these reports involved arrest, with some dealt with by way of notebook interview. One of the 21 reports also included a drugs offence.

John Blair - Alliance