1. The state or condition of wandering from place to place without a home, job, or means of support. • Vagrancy is generally considered a course of conduct or a manner of living rather than a single act. But under some statutes, a single act has been held sufficient to constitute vagrancy. One court held, for example, that the act of prowling about and creeping up on parked cars and their occupants at night, under circumstances suggesting an intent to commit a crime, constitutes vagrancy. See Smith v. Drew, 26 P.2d 1040 (Wash. 1933). Many state laws prohibiting vagrancy have been declared unconstitutionally vague.
— Also termed vagrantism. [Cases: Vagrancy
1. C.J.S. Vagrancy §§ 2–12, 22–27, 31–32, 35–37.]
2. An instance of such wandering. Cf. LOITERING.
“Vagrancy is a status resulting from misconduct and in the form of a socially harmful condition or mode of life which has been defined and made punishable by law. Until recently it was a misdemeanor, or group of misde-meanors, in most states.” Rollin M. Perkins & Ronald N. Boyce, Criminal Law 494 (3d ed. 1982).
