Police Intervention on Begging across Eight Jurisdictions: an Application of RIMES Instrument

• In Event: Factors that Shape Criminal Policy Decision Making

Abstract

RIMES instrument aims to measure social exclusion caused by Criminal Justice Systems in Western countries. The RIMES instrument consist of 39 items, distributed among nine thematic pools, involving each one several aspects of Criminal Justice Systems. Pool Number 1 encompasses four different rules and practices regarding Control of Public Spaces. This paper delves in one particular indicator of Social Exclusion, belonging to the aforementioned pool: police intervention on begging. Specifically, such item deals with the ability of police to arrest a person for repeated street begging. We discusse the results obtained in eight different jurisdictions: California, England and Wales, Finland, Germany, Italy, New York, Poland and Spain.
Our study concludes that, although begging is prohibited in a number of analyzed jurisdictions, police not always has the power of arresting persons involved in such behaviour. That is the case of countries like Spain, where begging is sometimes prohibited and sanctioned by municipal ordinances which do not give local police officers the power to arrest infractors. Instead, neither in Germany nor in Finalnd, begging is even prohibited in the first place.
Police powers to arrest beggars are available in all anglosaxon jurisdictions studied (California, New York and England and Wales). By contrast, police may not arrest people for street begging in none of the Continental European countries examined with the sole exception of Italy.
These results suggest that, regardind this specific ítem, as a general rule, angloxason countries would be more exclusionary tan continental Euroepan countries. We try to provide some context for such a phenomenon and also discusse what specific factors explain the case of Italy.

Author

• Pablo Rando, University of Sevilla