George the Vagrant Sentenced for 30 days in the Pen Erie Co. Penitentiary Buffalo, New York 1912

George may have just wandered out for a walk and ended up arrested for vagrancy.  Yes, he also looks like an ax murderer, but vagrancy during this time and up through the 1950s was a catch-all charge police used to harass anyone that didn’t conform to their perceived community standards.  These laws gave police virtually unlimited means to arrest anyone for any reason at any time.

Taking a look at the archives for the Erie County Penitentiary from the late 1880s to 1908 over 250,000 people were incarcerated for vagrancy.  An average of 750 people were locked up every month during that 28 year period for which I could find a searchable database.