(The Center Square) – New Hampshire is being sued over an anti-loitering law that civil liberties groups say gives police an unconstitutional authority to harass homeless people and prevent encampments.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Concord by the New Hampshire chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, says the state’s “loitering and prowling” law is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th Amendment’s due process provisions and the Fourth Amendment’s right against unreasonable seizures. The legal challenge stems from a two year investigation by the group into police use of the law.
“The loitering statute’s arbitrary and disproportionate enforcement against these and other unhoused people illustrates its unconstitutionality,” the ACLU wrote in the 60-page complaint. “Its vague terms invite abuse by authorizing arrests based on mere hunches.”
Under the law, vagrants can be charged with a violation if they “knowingly appear at a place, or at a time, under circumstances that warrant alarm for the safety of persons or property in the vicinity.”
The civil liberties group says police in Manchester, Concord and other cities are using the statute to “harass and arbitrarily punish unhoused people” for “innocent behaviors” like sleeping on streets or other public spaces.
Every year, hundreds of individuals are charged under the law, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit cites data from New Hampshire courts showing 2,364 cases were filed in which a loitering violation was charged from Jan. 1, 2013, to Dec. 31, 2024 – averaging 197 per year. The group cited more recent data showing more than 50% of the cases are getting tossed out by the courts.
“Police shouldn’t have the power to harass and arrest any person for any reason, but New Hampshire’s loitering law allows them to do just that,” Gilles Bissonnette, the New Hampshire ACLU’s legal director, said in a statement. “Criminalizing unhoused individuals in our communities for simply existing in public spaces does nothing to solve the root causes of homelessness or create real solutions to our state’s housing crisis.”
The ACLU says New Hampshire’s loitering law is an outlier as only one of five states – Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, and Georgia are the others – with similar laws on the books. Last year, the Delaware attorney general agreed to not enforce Delaware’s loitering law because of constitutional concerns, the ACLU said.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for states and cities to enforce bans on homeless people sleeping outside in public places, overturning a California’s based appeals court decision that found such laws amount to cruel and unusual punishment.
President Donald Trump followed up with an executive order banning homeless encampment on federal lands within the District of Columbia. Trump’s order also instructed federal agencies to reward cities and states that “enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering.”
