New Travelers

   United Kingdom. From around 1960, a number of non-Gypsy house dwellers started living in caravans and buses. Some did this for economic reasons, others because of frustration at town life. By 1986 the numbers had grown to several hundred, and they are mentioned in a report on Gypsies prepared in that year for the secretary of state for the environment by Prof. Gerald Wibberley of London University. The government brought in the concept of trespassing on private property as being a crime, to deal with what it saw as a new problem. This was introduced into the Criminal Justice Act of 1986 and strengthened in the 1994 Criminal Justice Act. New Travelers are generally classed as Gypsies in English law if they travel for an economic purpose. The term "New Age Travellers" is sometimes loosely applied to people who do not travel at all but live in tents and grow food on organic principles.