Poor Laws: A Historiography of Vagrancy in Australia

Abstract

The study of vagrancy forms part of a larger investigation into the social origins of law, the structures of inequality and the gendered and racially discriminatory aspects of societies. A full analysis of vagrancy in Australia must necessarily begin with the inherited traditions of its colonial master, its convict origins and the defensive nature of European settlement. While the former provided the moral and legal framework, the latter played a longer and more influential role in establishing the interventionist nature of government in Australia. Despite sharing significant commonalities with the British, Australia's vagrancy laws differed in their application in important ways. As with other colonial regimes, most notably the United States and South Africa, vagrancy laws provided authorities with broad powers, which enabled them to punish vice and to impose social order on the structures of inequality in class, race and gender.