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# When being poor in Seattle was a criminal offense
- URL: https://www.cascadepbs.org/culture/2018/10/when-being-poor-seattle-was-criminal-offense/
- Published: 2018-10-30T09:55:00.000Z
- Updated: 2025-06-19T09:30:08.000Z
- Description: "I'd rather be in hell, than on the chain gang."
- Author: Knute Berger
- Tags: Culture, Crime, Homelessness, Mossback's Northwest, Multimedia, Seattle & King County, Video, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-04-14 08:10, #Import 2025-05-09 14:42, #article

In 1872, the Seattle council passed Ordinance 32 that outlined punishment for vagrants — the idle, dissolute, immoral, profligate, or the unemployed — by specifying that they could be put to work. Many offenses earned a sentence on the chain gang: Swearing, drunkenness, illegal gambling, patronizing prostitutes. But for many, the only offense was being poor. If you couldn’t pay a fine, you had to work it off on the gang.