Panhandling should not be illegal because panhandlers are humans too

The argument

The argument against criminalising panhandling begins with a claim about who is being criminalised. More often than not, panhandlers are homeless, and they mean no harm; the conduct at issue is asking, which leaves the person asked entirely free to refuse. A law against panhandling therefore does not prohibit an injury. It prohibits a request made by people who have run out of other options, and it attaches a penalty to being visibly destitute in public. The second step concerns how the circumstances behind that request should be understood. Those circumstances are generally unknown to the passer-by, but they must have been hard for a person to end up begging for money, since nobody arrives at that position while other routes remain open. Blaming people for their circumstances is not productive, proponents argue, because it substitutes a judgement about how they got there for any response to where they now are. Everyone had a life before resorting to panhandling, and the demand to see them as they are, as human beings, is a demand to treat the present situation as something that happened to a person rather than as a description of what they are. What follows is a claim about the effect of the alternative response. Donating food, clothing or money helps a person gain confidence as part of society, which is the opposite of what a fine or an arrest achieves. A compassionate approach is presented as the appropriate one for people in need, and criminalisation as a way of making their position harder in the name of removing it from view. The final point answers the objection that organised services already exist. There are organisations that help the homeless, but their efforts still fall short of the already present panhandling population, and until they reach everyone, banning the only recourse left to those they have not reached removes an option without supplying a replacement.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The short term donating that takes place with panhandlers is not proactive in their situation. If they keep receiving what they need, they will get used to staying in a lacking lifestyle where they simply beg for money their whole lives. Giving back to big organizations that aim to help these individuals get back on track or assimilate them into society is a better way for people to donate. Organizations will also most likely give them a better short term solution such as shelter or food rather than drugs or bad purchases.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] This states a disposition rather than an argument. That panhandlers are people who have met with hardship is accepted on both sides; the question is whether soliciting money in public should be prohibited, and describing the people involved sympathetically does not answer it. "Most often" also concedes that the description does not cover every case, which is where restrictions are usually defended. [Rejecting P2] Whether to give directly is a separate question from what the law should permit. The counter's claim that donations entrench the situation bears on what a passer-by should do, and the shortfall in organised provision is a reason to fund services rather than a reason about criminal law. [Rejecting C] The conclusion arrives at a defensible destination by a weak route. The strongest arguments against these ordinances are that asking for help is protected speech, that they penalise poverty itself, and that fines and arrests deepen the condition they respond to — none of which the premises use, leaving the position resting on compassion where an argument was available.