Should begging be criminalized?

Abstract

According to §197 of the Danish Penal Code, a person may be sentenced to up to six months’ unconditional imprisonment for begging in public spaces, and similar legislation has been introduced in many other countries. But is criminalization of begging consistent with core normative principles concerning the types of conduct it is morally appropriate for states in liberal societies to criminalize? To answer this question, the article analyzes and discusses whether criminalization of begging can be justified by variations of the harm principle, legal paternalism, the offense principle, and legal moralism. The overall conclusion is that it cannot and that there is good reason to believe that no reasonable normative theory of criminalization would support the criminalization of begging.