Vagrancy as a Penal Problem

The Logistics of Administering Punishment in Late-Nineteenth-Century Canada

Bibliographic Data

ID4301436
AuthorsPrashan Ranasinghe (0000-0003-0219-5000)
Year2012
Volume25
Issue4
Pages531-551
Publication date2012-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Historical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0952-1909 • E-ISSN: 1467-6443
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1467-6443.2012.01427.x
OpenAlexW1602058307
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited23

There exists a voluminous literature on the history of vagrancy and vagrancy legislation. However, virtually all of its focus has been on the manifestations of vagrancy as a social problem. What has not received attention is another important aspect to this history, one that finds its roots and geneses directly out of its construction as a social problem. This is the problem associated with the logistics surrounding the administration of punishment within correctional institutions, what I call vagrancy as a penal problem. The day-to-day operations of the criminal justice system, especially that part which was responsible for the administration of punishment, were immensely burdened because of the sheer number of vagrants who came through the system. This created logistical problems with respect to housing, classifying, maintaining and regulating prisoners, and especially with respect to vagrants, putting them to hard labour. This paper seeks to elucidate the penal problem of vagrancy by narrating the voices of the personnel who worked in correctional institutions

Criminal justice · Criminology · Legislation · Political science · Punishment (psychology · Sociology · Vagrancy · Canadian Identity and History · Historical and Scientific Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · Psychology · Law · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub