Sus Law

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/wiki/Sus Lawwork

The Vagrancy Act of 1824, informally called the "Sus Law", allowed police officers in England to stop, search, and even arrest anyone they liked on the basis of suspicion alone. The Act, the short title for which was "An Act for the Punishment of idle and disorderly Persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in England", did not apply to Scotland.

Though the law was repealed in 1981 due to extreme resentment culminating in a riot inspired by gratuitous use of the law, it remains part of the English cultural consciousness, to the point that an entirely reasonable element in (especially lighter) television shows is that a person can be arrested for "acting suspiciously". Given the predilection toward quirkiness among the sector of the British public appearing in television shows, it is a bit surprising that the British police ever have any time to arrest actual criminals. If you believe the Daily Mail, they don't.

When one is arrested for "behaving in a highly suspicious manner", the usual recourse is to have someone respectable call the police station and "vouch" for the arrested one. Apparently, under English law, acting a bit odd is an arrestable offence, but proving that you have at least one friend will exonerate you. If said friend happens to be angry at you, they may have the inspired idea to deny knowing you to the police - in fictionland, they will face absolutely no repercussions for lying to the cops in order to get some petty revenge on a friend.

Outside of children's television, this trope is basically unheard of in the United States, possibly because Americans have enough cultural awareness of police abuses to put this beyond the Willing Suspension of Disbelief: that sort of thing is considered either to cross the line into fantasy territory (The Simpsons, for example) or to be a genuinely sinister situation on U.S. TV, but not across The Pond. Meanwhile, in 2008, at least two UK political parties are promising to free the police of accountability and restore their power to arrest whomever they like don't like whenever they like.

Examples of Sus Law include:

Literature

• The Discworld novel Men at Arms notes that Ankh-Morpork law (a parody of English law) has "a whole quiverful of offences available to a policeman who wishes to pass the time of day with a citizen, ranging from Loitering With Intent through Obstruction to Lingering While Being the Wrong Colour/Shape/Species/Sex ".
• Inspector Susworth from the Borribles novels is named for the Sus Law and is intended as an embodiment of the misuse of power by the British police.

Live-Action TV

• Happens in several episodes of Are You Being Served?, including an instance of Mr. Rumbold refusing to vouch for the staff to get revenge. Mr. Humphries was once detained for having a "suspicious-looking bulge" from an orange in his pocket.
• All Creatures Great and Small: James Herriot is forced to go down to the station to vouch for one of his clients when he is arrested for wearing a kerchief over his nose and mouth. Mr Herriot had suggested it to help the client cope with a particularly foul-smelling task to undertake at his farm, and he'd forgotten he was wearing it. Subverted in that despite the story taking place when the old sus law was still on the books, walking around with your face masked was and still is covered under Going Equipped To Commit A Crime.
• As Time Goes By: Lionel is detained while trying to find Jean. Jean, who is angry at him, refuses to vouch.
• In one of the most famous sketches from Not the Nine O'Clock News (written before the repeal of the sus law), Constable Savage is reprimanded for making arrests for "Looking At Me In A Funny Way", "Walking On The Cracks In The Pavement", "Smelling Of Foreign Food" and "Possession Of An Offensive Wife", among many, many other charges he has brought... against the same man. Said man is, at the time of the reprimand, being held on a charge of "Possession Of Curly Black Hair And Thick Lips". The punchline has Savage transferred to the SPG. The Special Patrol Group was a public disorder control unit implicated in the death of a civilian in 1979, discredited after investigation and disbanded in 1986.

Inspector: Is he a coloured gentleman? Savage: (shocked) Hadn't noticed, sir.

Video Games

• The player could easily be arrested for "acting suspiciously" in Legends of Valour.

Web Comics

• Dangerously Chloe had a bratty angel trying to "arrest" Teddy because he can see her wings. Which they discovered after she tripped over her own Conspicuous Trenchcoat. That was her outfit of choice to shadow random humans. Which she did because she thought "there was something suspicious about them". Before this (offscreen), she caught "a suspicious doggy".