Act of wandering about without employment or identifiable means of support.
Traditionally a vagrant was thought to be one who was able to work for his maintenance but preferred instead to live idly, often as a beggar. Punishment ranged from branding and whipping to conscription into the military services and transportation to penal colonies. In the U.S., laws against vagrancy were used by police and prosecutors to proscribe a wide range of behaviours. Many such laws were struck down as unconstitutionally vague, thus largely decriminalizing vagrancy, though in the 1990s many local laws were implemented to curtail aggressive panhandling, begging, and other activities by vagrants on city streets.