Decisions by the county government

Over one-fifth of the detainees were kept in custody between eleven and 100 days. Lengthy detainments could follow difficulties establishing identities and belonging. Detainees’ abilities to account for themselves credibly and avoid raising suspicion were crucial.1 Johnsson, Vårt fredliga, pp. 430, 438. The officials could sometimes have an incentive to release people without establishing their identity, since the jail was often overcrowded and it took time and effort to investigate people.2 E.g., ULA, Överståthållarämbetets skrivelse till KB Västmanland 17 December 1838, ‘Jonas’, DIII:252, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet. On many occasions, people who showed their passport to the officials were ordered to leave the county immediately without being detained. A warning with or without an order to obtain legal protection within a certain time could be written on the passport. Detainments could also be lengthy if the county government had ordered a detainee to find legal protection before they could be released, or if a sentenced detainee appealed to the National High Court. Only nine appeals were recorded, and only three of them had any sort of success; they were granted another respite.3 Johnsson, Vårt fredliga, p. 315.

The most common way to leave the castle was to be transported on a prison cart somewhere (48 per cent out of the total of 1,066 detainments). Others were released with a passport (42 per cent) and some sort of decision (for example, on arrival the person was entitled to poor relief) or order (for example, the person should not beg or ‘roam’, or had to obtain legal protection). To be released, the detainees had to be considered fit enough to travel to where they were supposed to, mostly to their parish of belonging. The risk of people begging when released was a major concern. Not all survived detention, and ten detainees died in jail. Others were taken to hospital. Six per cent – fifty-nine adults, one minor, and two accompanying children – were sentenced to a house of correction or the Pioneer Corps. Most detainees were sent to other counties (52 per cent). Another 32 per cent were transported to a parish, authority or specific destination within the county of Västmanland (and sometimes also allowed to continue to another county).4 The rest of the cases are unclear. The majority were thus considered non-residents of Västmanland county.

At least 28 per cent of all arrests were followed by a decision directly related to compulsory service and labour legislation; for example, an order to find legal protection or a sentence to a house of correction. A majority of cases involved some sort of coercive measure such as deportation, removal or various orders being given. As seen in the case of Åkerström, caring for infants did not always protect people, even before 1833. However, children did protect their carers from being sentenced to hard labour. Until the promulgation of the new Vagrancy Act of 1833, children could accompany their caregiver to a house of correction. This happened only once in Västmanland, in 1832, to a woman and her two children whose parish of belonging was unknown.5 ULA, Fångjournaler no 388, 15 September 1832, ‘Palm’, D2b:7, Kriminalvårdsanstalten i Västerås. In this case, the sentence was at odds with the law, as one of the children was just a few weeks old. From 1833, children were to be cared for by their home parish. Parishes could thus have financial motives such as poor relief concerns, making them reluctant to have, for example, a single mother sentenced to a house of correction. However, that did not necessarily stop parishes from harassing and reporting people, as seen in the case of Åkerström. The state was responsible for providing for children without a known parish of belonging. When detainees were sentenced, they were examined by a doctor who decided if they were fit enough to be sent to hard labour. Disability or illness did not automatically make people exempt. For instance, on one occasion the doctor concluded that a sentenced detainee was not able-bodied as his arms were deformed. He was subsequently released, but still ordered to find legal protection.6 ULA, KB Västmanland skrivelse till KB Värmland, 31 October 1837, ‘Björklund’, AIa:126, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet. A boy in his teens, of short stature, who had lost his work at a mine after having suffered from fever, was sentenced to a state house of correction in 1832. He had never been accused of anything except begging.7 ULA, Fångjournaler, no. 403, 20 September 1832, ‘Löfving’, D2b:7, Kriminalvårdsanstalten i Västerås.

Age should have protected all detainees under the age of fifteen, but two children were sentenced to a state house of correction. One died while still in custody in Västerås. A couple of other minors were not released until they had obtained legal protection. No one older than sixty-seven was ordered to do the same. In total, twenty-one people over the age of sixty were detained for ‘vagrancy’ only: one was sentenced to a house of correction, four others were ordered to find legal protection, and one was released after having obtained legal protection. If poor, masterless people were prosecuted, they ran the risk of being ordered to find legal protection. Far from all had a criminal record, but begging, earlier arrests for ‘vagrancy’ and previous convictions were aggravating circumstances.

Common respites given to obtain legal protection were for eight days, two weeks, three weeks or, most frequently, one month. In the Vagrancy Act of 1833 the accused person’s own guilt for lacking legal protection – which was to be evaluated by the officials – along with any criminal record was central to how they should be treated with regard to respites and release.8 Vagrancy Act, SFS 27:1833, §§ 5–7, 13. While the paragraph in the Servant Act stipulated compulsory service for those lacking legal protection, the vagrancy legislation both before and after 1833 typically contained formulations such as entering service or another legal occupation. In practice, the county governments in interaction with local stakeholders decided what served as legal protection. Orders to enter ‘proper’ service could explicitly be given.9 ULA, Protokoll med handlingar, 9 June 1836, §1, ‘Rundqvist’, AIIa:7, Länsstyrelsen Västmanland, landskansliet.

If a person was subsequently released, they were in most cases given a passport or some other written document to show the legality of and conditions for their movement. In conjunction with issuing the Vagrancy Act of 1833, these so-called vagrancy passports were pre-printed, and contained details about the carrier and the conditions for release. The internal passport system played a key role in vagrancy policing, which unsurprisingly aimed at control over the movements of these ‘vagrants’. This was made even clearer in the Act of 1833, which explicitly stated that passports for unprotected people should be issued following an existing decree of 1824 containing rules for the issuing of passports to ‘vagrants’ and ‘unsettled families belonging to the labouring classes’.10 Kungl. Maj:ts nådiga kungörelse, angående vad vid utfärdandet av pass åt lösdrivare […], iakttagas bör. Given den 18 maj 1824, Årstrycket. In adjacent Dalecarlia officials kept a separate register for vagrancy passports, containing information on aspects such as physical appearance.11 ULA, Passjournaler, 1820–1841, CVI:2, Länsstyrelsen i Kopparberg. In Västmanland, many vagrancy passports were only registered in the county jail records, and these generally lacked important individual data such as age and appearance until the early 1840s.

The state officials did, however, become more meticulous from 1833 onwards. More passports issued to ‘vagrants’ were registered in the regular passport register.12 Johnsson, Vårt fredliga, p. 419. Upon arrival in a parish the passport should be shown to the county constable and the parish clergy. If the ‘vagrant’ could not find legal protection, the county constable could decide to lengthen the respite and allow the ‘vagrant’ to go somewhere else. Sometimes county constables were explicitly to decide if someone should be ordered to find legal protection or poor relief. People who were released also came back to the castle by choice, for instance to plead for another respite. County governor Ridderstolpe once wrote that the state could save money on prison transports. If people were only accused of lack of legal protection, they could be summoned to the castle. He claimed that they came voluntarily because it was shameful to be seen on a prison cart, because they were attached to their homes, and because the first time around they were just warned.13 ULA, KB Västmanland skrivelse till Kongl. Maj:t 1831, no date, AIa:126, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet. The obedience of ordinary people in a society plagued by brutal class disparities and extremely fragile living conditions should not be underestimated. The county government was flexible and could be pragmatic, but its dealings with ‘vagrancy’ were also unpredictable, and occasionally the officials did not seem to have been sure what legislation to use.14 ULA, Protokoll med handlingar 12 December 1834, ‘Ekman’, AIIa:6, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet. ULA, Skrivelser från enskilda personer, Jan. 1831, ‘Bolin’, DIV:407, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet.

Several times, detainees were required to obtain legal protection before being released. If this proved impossible, the detainee could be sentenced to public work, which might last forever.15 Snare, Work, p. 156. A little more than forty times detainees managed to get legal protection from jail and were thereafter released. In all these cases the legal protection obtained was the entering of service, but the exact circumstances of these employments are difficult to unravel. On a couple of occasions close relatives gave protection. Once, a district judge organised legal protection for a young girl; the stated reason was that he feared the girl would be damaged by the conditions in jail.16 ULA, Inneliggande handlingar, no date, ‘Holm’, F:30, Kämnärsrätten i Västerås. One detainee obtained legal protection through Ridderstolpe himself.17 ULA, Fångjournal no 436, 4 December 1831, D2b:8, Kriminalvårdsanstalten i Västerås. Many of the released detainees were not registered in the parish records of the employer, which they should have been if they were live-in servants. There can be various reasons for this: they were never employed (for example, the contract was fictitious, which according to law rendered an alleged servant a ‘vagrant’), they stayed elsewhere, or the clergy chose not to include them.

From state correctional facilities, there is evidence of individual employers who ‘took out’ unsuspecting or desperate detainees as they had difficulties hiring people. A Baron Duvall in Västmanland, for instance, who had a very bad reputation, employed a sentenced ‘vagrant’ from the Southern Correctional Facility in Stockholm. The servant soon ran away, but was caught and taken to the county jail. In a petition, he claimed that not only had he had been brutally beaten, Duvall had also, among much else, whipped a milkmaid according to martial law as a punishment for the cows giving too little milk.18 ULA, Skrivelser 16 May 1831, ‘Hagman’, DIV:411, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet. The Servant Act – this ‘yoke of bondage’ as some journeymen in Västerås described it in 183819 ULA, Dombok, 30 July 1838, §347, A1:38, Kämnärsrätten i Västerås. – gave the right to castigate, but some employers were more brutal than others.

The ability to obtain legal protection mainly depended on social networks. For example, a woman who was arrested in Stockholm explained to her interrogators that she had no friends or relatives in Stockholm who could give her legal protection. Instead, she wanted to be sent to Västmanland, where she had lived most of her life.20 ULA, Skrivelser från andra myndigheter, no 132, no date, 1837, ‘Flinta’, DIII:211, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet. The county officials in both Västmanland and Dalecarlia asked the detainees from whom, or where, they thought they could obtain legal protection, and thereafter the officials made inquiries. Following the Vagrancy Act of 1833, it became a standard procedure to write to the parish clergy, who in turn asked the parish assembly if the parish or anyone else could offer legal protection to a sentenced detainee. There is no evidence of parishes giving legal protection to sentenced detainees in Västmanland in the 1830s. Judging from the parish assemblies’ answers when asked, employing a detained person could look bad and lead to ill-feelings within the community.21 ULA, KB Västmanland skrivelse till KB Uppsala, 26 May 1834, ‘H. Sundberg’, AIa:123, Länsstyrelsen i Västmanland, landskansliet.

It was difficult for many to obtain legal protection, even if they were released. The sources show ten instances of people asking to be sentenced to a house of correction, as they saw no other way out. The labouring poor were not a homogeneous mass: people had varying resources and networks. While the Servant Act could be described as ‘a yoke of bondage’, poverty in itself is a yoke of bondage. Poverty shapes people’s lives, health and bodies, and a strong, healthy body made it easier to obtain employment. To put it simply, not all poor people had the same bargaining power.

Around 100 times, detainees were sentenced to hard labour for not being able to comply with the laws of labour and vagrancy. Of these, sixty-two were kept in custody for ‘vagrancy’ only, and 20 per cent were women. The act of 1833 had no effect on the number of sentences, which depended on one crucial bottleneck: available space in state institutions. The year with the most sentences was 1830, when eighteen people were sent to state institutions. Pure coincidence could place someone in transport to a house of correction. On one occasion, a sentenced minor died in jail, and Ridderstolpe simply sent another detainee in his place. About 18 per cent of all sentenced persons were accused only of lack of legal protection, usually in combination with begging. The rest had some sort of criminal record, which could be a petty theft that had happened twenty years earlier. In a summary justice procedure, the labouring poor could thus be punished for their status and expect harsher treatment than others for the same offence.