Panhandling in New York City
- Artist/Author/Producer: People who panhandle
- Confronting Bodies: New York City
- Dates of action: 1993
- Location: New York City
- Description of the Art Work
- Begging and loitering in public places. Begging on the streets of New
York City "implicates expressive conduct or communicative activity"
protected by the First Amendment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit ruled July 29, 1993. The court struck down a New York
statute that criminalized loitering in a public place "for the purpose of
begging."
- Description of incident
- The city argued that begging has no expressive element, and that the
city's interest in combating the intimidation, fraud, and urban decline in
areas where panhandlers congregate outweighs their interest in conveying
a message of indigence. It also said the loitering statute was a key
tool in community policing.
- Results of incident
- Although the Second Circuit upheld a ban on begging in the city's subway
system in 1990, it distinguished that case as involving a "limited" forum
that left open alternative channels of communication above ground. The
loitering statute, by contrast, applied to city sidewalks, traditional
public forums in which content-based exclusions of speech must be
narrowly drawn to achieve a compelling state interest.
Begging was decriminalized.
Source: Office for Intellectual Freedom, American Library Association