That kind of summary 'justice' will be met with nods of approval across the country among a people fed up with the high crime rate and the seeming inability of the powers that be to deal with the situation effectively.
We believe there should be no room for equivocation for lawbreakers. Robbers and murderers should be punished according to the laws of the land. But vigilante justice dehumanises all of us.
Every effort must be made to to have a functioning justice system that works speedily and so reduce the felt need by persons to take the law into their own hands.
American criminologists suggest that in the absence of a formal criminal justice system, certain volunteer associations (called vigilance committees) got together in the early 1700s to blacklist, harass, banish, "tar and feather", flog, mutilate, torture, or kill people who were perceived as threats to their communities, families, or privileges. By the late 1700s, these committees became known as lynch mobs because almost all the time, the punishment handed out was a summary execution by hanging.
During the 1800s, most American towns with seaports had vigilante groups that worked to identify and punish suspected thieves, alcoholics and gamblers among recently arrived immigrants.
As it was then, so it is now; vigilantes tend to regard the persons they target as living outside the social bonds and communal ties that hold their society together. The target represents an alien enemy that must be defended against. The target must also be punished, and punished outside the law. Legal niceties are seen as unnecessary intrusions on the basic freedom that all communities enjoy to protect themselves.
The danger with this kind of thinking is that any group of persons or lone individual may decide to be judge, jury and executioner. It makes heroes of rogue cops who can cloak themselves in the mantle of protecting the society from the worst elements in its midst. When this thinking is put into action, we are sliding into barbarism and anarchy.
Vigilantism will always thrive in situations where there is a loss of confidence in the established court systems. But the answer to our decrepit court system is not to encourage more lawlessness, but to fix what we have.
Time is not on our hands and the Government needs to act quickly to address the situation. If we fail to do so, the consequences may be worse than anything we can contemplate at present.
