Anti-Vagrancy Department arrested 771 beggars in January — report

AMMAN — The Anti-Vagrancy Department arrested 771 beggars during 278 campaigns last month, seizing a total of JD1,402 in cash, according to the Ministry of Social Development’s monthly report released on Monday.

Of the arrested beggars, 285 were males and 250 were females, while 236 of the total arrests were juveniles between the ages of 7 and 18 years.

A total of 138 of the 200 arrests in the central region were juveniles, while the total number of beggars arrested in the Kingdom’s southern and northern regions stood at 393 and 40, respectively.

However, the number of arrested beggars in December 2021 was 913, of which 462 were in the southern region, 355 in the central region and 96 in the northern region, according to last month’s report.

In 2021, a total of 13,500 beggars were arrested in the Kingdom, according to Director of the Anti-Vagrancy Department Maher Kloub.

He noted that the ministry cooperates with various entities to achieve its mission in combating this phenomenon.

“We work on intensifying anti-vagrancy campaigns in cooperation with the Public Security Directorate in addition to raising public awareness by cooperating with the media,” Kloub told the Jordan Times.

The ministry also works with various organisations in implementing rehabilitation enabling programmes for vagrants, he said.

Kloub added that “the reason for the prevalence of begging as a phenomenon is the existence of large groups who have adopted it as an easy way to gain money along with the public’s sympathy for them”.

Item 389 of the Jordanian Panel Code, number 16 of 1960 criminalises begging as an act punishable by law.

“Adults are referred to courts that decide the necessary legal procedures as determined by the law,” Kloub said.

In cases of juvenile vagrancy, he noted that the juvenile or child is treated as a person in need of care and protection.

“Arrested juveniles are admitted into social development centres, in which they receive the needed physical, psychological and social care,” he said. 

The aforementioned report showed that education and rehabilitation homes received 202 juveniles in January, while six children were placed in alternative families, 20 were admitted into foster care and 12 left.

According to the data shown in this monthly report, which monitors the ministry’s most prominent works and services, in January, 38,124 benefitted from the services of the ministry’s directorates in the past month.

The minstry’s directorates offered cash handouts to 26,851 families, while 7,534 families benefitted from in-kind assistance, the report said.

The number of new families benefiting from monthly recurrent aid was 136, while 460 benefited from emergency financial aid programmes, 43 benefited from physical rehabilitation programmes, and 46 benefitted from the vocational training programme for members from beneficiary families, as per the report. 

It also showed that the ministry received 74 requests to buy houses for poor families and 35 requests for housing maintenance, while three houses were built and seven received maintenance.