how long have vagrancy and loitering been a crime
Vagrancy After the American Civil War, some southern states passed Black Codes, laws that tried to control the hundreds of thousands of freed slaves. In 1866, the State of Virginia, fearing that it would be "overrun with dissolute and abandoned characters", passed an Act Providing for the Punishment of Vagrants. Homeless or unemployed persons could be forced into labour on public or private works, for very low pay, for a statutory maximum of three months; if fugitive and recaptured, they must serve the rest of their term at minimum subsistence, wearing ball and chain. In effect, though not in declared intent, the Act criminalized attempts by impoverished freedpeople to seek out their own families and rebuild their lives. The commanding general in Virginia, Alfred H. Terry, condemned the Act as a form of entrapment, the attempted reinstitution of "slavery in all but its name". He forbade its enforcement. It is not known how often it was applied, or what was done to prevent its implementation, but it remained statute in Virginia until 1904.[21]