Panhandling Guide No.13 (2002) by Michael S. Scott

The Problem of Panhandling

This guide addresses the problem of panhandling.† It also covers nearly equivalent conduct in which, in exchange for donations, people perform nominal labor such as squeegeeing (cleaning) the windshields of cars stopped in traffic, holding car doors open, saving parking spaces, guarding parked cars, buying subway tokens, and carrying luggage or groceries.

The guide begins by describing the panhandling problem and reviewing factors that contribute to it. It then identifies a series of questions that might help you in analyzing your local problem. Finally, it reviews responses to the problem, and what is known about those responses from evaluative research and police practice.

Generally, there are two types of panhandling: passive and aggressive. Passive panhandling is soliciting without threat or menace, often without any words exchanged at all—just a cup or a hand held out. Aggressive panhandling is soliciting coercively, with actual or implied threats, or menacing actions. If a panhandler uses physical force or extremely aggressive actions, the panhandling may constitute robbery.

Isolated incidents of passive panhandling are usually a low police priority.1 In many jurisdictions, panhandling is not even illegal. Even where it is illegal, police usually tolerate passive panhandling, for both legal and practical reasons.2 Courts in some jurisdictions have ruled that passive panhandling is constitutionally protected activity. Police can reasonably conclude that, absent citizen complaints, their time is better spent addressing more serious problems. Whether panhandling and other forms of street disorder cause or contribute to more serious crime—the broken windows thesis—is hotly debated, but the debate is as yet unsettled.3 Panhandling becomes a higher police priority when it becomes aggressive or so pervasive that its cumulative effect, even when done passively, is to make passersby apprehensive.4 Panhandling is of greater concern to merchants who worry that their customers will be discouraged from patronizing their business. Merchants are most likely to call police when panhandling disrupts their commerce.5,†

Police must also be concerned with the welfare of panhandlers who are vulnerable to physical and verbal assault by other panhandlers, street robbers†† or passersby who react violently to being panhandled.6 Panhandlers often claim certain spots as their own territory, and disputes and fights over territory are not uncommon.7

Broadly speaking, public policy perspectives on panhandling are of two types—the sympathetic view and the unsympathetic view. The sympathetic view, commonly but not unanimously held by civil libertarians and homeless advocates, is that panhandling is essential to destitute people's survival, and should not be regulated by police.8 Some even view panhandling as a poignant expression of the plight of the needy, and an opportunity for the more fortunate to help.9 The unsympathetic view is that panhandling is a blight that contributes to further community disorder and crime, as well as to panhandlers' degradation and deterioration as their underlying problems go unaddressed.10 Those holding this view believe panhandling should be heavily regulated by police.

People's opinions about panhandling are rooted in deeply held beliefs about individual liberty, public order and social

responsibility. Their opinions are also shaped by their actual exposure to panhandling—the more people are panhandled, the less sympathetic they are toward panhandlers.11 While begging is discouraged on most philosophical grounds and by most major religions, many people feel torn about whether to give money to panhandlers.12 Some people tolerate all sorts of street disorder, while others are genuinely frightened by it. This tension between opposing viewpoints will undoubtedly always exist. This guide takes a more neutral stance: without passing judgment on the degree of sympathy owed to panhandlers, it recognizes that police will always be under some pressure to control panhandling, and that there are effective and fair ways to do so.

Related Problems

Panhandling and its variants are only one form of disorderly street conduct and street crime about which police are

concerned. Other forms—not directly addressed in this guide—include:

disorderly conduct of day laborers;

disorderly conduct of public inebriates (e.g., public intoxication, public drinking, public urination and defecation, harassment, intimidation, and passing out in public places);

disorderly conduct of transients/homeless (e.g., public camping, public urination and defecation, and sleeping on sidewalks and benches, and in public libraries);

disorderly youth in public places;

harassment (usually sexual) of female pedestrians;

pickpocketing;

purse snatchings;

robbery at automated teller machines (ATMs);

trash picking (for