Law, Begging and Pragmatic Decency

In December 2018, the Swedish Supreme Administrative Court delivered a judgment that allowed municipalities to ban begging by means of local regulations on public order. The ruling reinstated a state response to begging that for decades had been considered as belonging to a long gone past. The present paper , in two descriptive sections, accounts for the regulation of begging in Sweden, first in a historic overview covering the period 1600–1950, followed by a description of modern legal developments in the period 1950–2022. It is highlighted that begging, in previous times, was dealt with both as a social question and as a question of law and order. Thus, the regulation on begging was not isolated from its social context (poverty). In contrast, the 2018 legal response allows for a partial, fragmented, approach where the act of begging is isolated from its social context which makes it politically possible to ban begging without any compensatory social measures.