Vigilantism Flashcards
What are the key readings?
Johnston (1996)
Hourigan (2017)
Topping & Byrne (2011)
What are the key points of Johnston (1996)?
Vigilantism involves deliberate planning and is not a spontaneous reaction.
Participants are private citizens who engage voluntarily, without official authority.
It represents a form of autonomous citizenship, functioning as a social movement.
The use or threat of force is a characteristic feature of vigilantism.
Vigilantism arises when individuals perceive that established social norms are under threat due to actual or potential transgressions.
What are the key points from Hourigan?
The authors trace the development of the drug trade in the Republic of Ireland, highlighting significant growth and transformation over recent decades.
The study examines the unique cultural traits of Irish organised crime groups, noting a strong emphasis on familial ties and localised control.
* A significant focus is placed on the role of paramilitary organisations in criminal activities in both Northern Ireland and the Republic.
The authors suggest that addressing organised crime in Ireland requires a nuanced understanding of the interplay between cultural factors, historical contexts, and the evolving nature of paramilitary groups.
They advocate for comprehensive strategies that involve community engagement, targeted law enforcement, and socio-economic interventions.
In some instances, paramilitaries have acted as vigilantes against drug dealers to gain political favour within local communities.
What are the key points from Topping and Byrne?
Despite the formal peace process and police reforms following the Good Friday Agreement of 1998, paramilitary groups continue to exert control in certain Belfast communities.
Support for paramilitary policing is not monolithic; it varies within communities and is influenced by multiple factors, including historical grievances, socio-economic conditions, and perceptions of state authority.
In areas where state policing is perceived as inadequate or illegitimate, some community members may support or tolerate paramilitary enforcement as a means of maintaining order.
These groups engage in non-state policing activities, often referred to as “punishment attacks,” to enforce their own form of justice.
Who defined vigilantism?
Sederberg 1978
What is vigilantism?
Vigilantism is a desire to preserve social stability in the face of behaviour which deviates from social norms
What are the emotional reactions to crime?
Anger
Feeling the need to retaliate against criminals but is rare
What is the 1988 Israeli study?
Over one quarter of the males surveyed reported that they had engaged in some form of vigilante action (with over 6% admitting to having taken part in violent vigilante acts either against people or property).
What did Johnson (1996) say?
There is no empirical research on the topic in the UK, while in the USA the quantity of research is small and its quality patchy
What did a survey say about guns?
Adults use guns for ‘protective purposes’ in the States over 2.5 million times each year. This is a figure nearly five times higher than the actual number of crimes committed with guns.
Who looked at potential victims?
Kovandzic et al 1998
What did Kovandzic (1998) find?
Annually, potential victims of crime kill between 1,400 and 3,200 criminals and injure a further 7,700 - 18,500
Why do people not intervene or respond to a criminal act?
Diffusion of responsibility effect
What is the Kitty Genovese case?
Was attacked outside the apartment building she lived in
38 witnesses but no-one intervened
Who looked at bystander intervention?
Shotland & Straw (1976)
What did Shotland & Straw (1976) find?
Less than a third of people who witnessed the event intervened to assist a woman who was being assaulted by a male attacker.
Of those who did intervene, the typical response was to approach the struggle slowly but in plain view in the hope and expectation that the attacker would take flight.
Only two individuals (out of a total of 41) rushed immediately and directly to help the victim.
Significantly both of these individuals had received unarmed combat training and both reported afterwards that they felt they could handle the situation.
What did Huston et al do?
interviewed people who had directly intervened in a criminal episode, were injured as a result and later received compensation for their injury.
What did Huston et al find?
Interveners:
had witnessed considerably more crime in the years prior to the incident
were more likely to have been personally victimised themselves
more likely to have been trained in police work, first-aid techniques
were physically larger than the controls.
What did Shotland & Stebbins (1980) find?
78% of the people who directly intervened were trained in self-defence techniques or boxing.
What links with direct interveners?
The same forces at work for vigilantes
Who looked at Israeli vigilantes?
Weisburd (1988)
What did Weisburd (1988) find?
Majority is male, more likely to have been personally victimised than non-vigilantes, individuals who belonged to smaller communities
among communities of similar sizes it was the ones with higher rates of victimisation which were most likely to produce vigilantes.
What is the issue of community?
Social psychology has long been aware that people from large cities are less likely to help strangers than people from smaller communities.
What occurs with vigilantism with cohesive communities?
More cohesive communities and communities which feel particularly threatened by the deviant behaviour in question are much more likely to show signs of vigilantism.
Who looked at the 3 requirements for vigilantism for it to occur?
Shotland & Goodstein (1984)
What are the 3 requirements for vigilantism to occur?
- The crimes must generate strong identification with the victim;
- The crimes themselves are perceived as being particularly threatening to the community’s standards
- There is frustration with and a lack of confidence in the formal justice system.
What is a prediction for vigilantism?
Vigilantism will be most common in communities which are reasonably cohesive but which suffer from relatively serious crime problems
Who looked at precincts in New York?
Shotland (1976)
What did Shotland (1976) find?
71 police precincts in New York city, the 5 precincts where spontaneous acts of vigilantism had occurred were also the ones with the most serious crime problems
What is the Tony Martin Case?
April 2000, a Norfolk farmer, Tony Martin, was jailed for life for shooting dead one of two burglars who he discovered in his house.
Martin was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment.
What is the For Sarah Campaign?
July 2000, began a campaign of publishing the names, addresses and photographs of convicted paedophiles
Vigilante groups, composed mainly of parents who believed they now had convicted paedophiles living in their local areas, mounted aggressive protests outside the houses of suspected paedophiles.
What occurred for suspected sex offenders in Plymouth and Whitely?
Gang attacks on suspected sex offenders occurred in Plymouth and Whitely, and other incidents occurred throughout the rest of the UK.
Who looked at surveys?
Neapolitan 1987
What did Neapolitan (1987) find?
Usually at least 40 to 50% of the population are supportive of vigilante actions
Who looked at support increases?
Weisburd 1988
What did Weisburd (1988) find?
Support increases to between 70 to 90% in communities where there is a greater perceived risk of victimisation
What is the Guardian Angels Movement?
Sub-way patrols
61% reduced their own fear of crime.
66% believed that the Angels actually reduced crime.
74% of people reported that they approved of the Angels and their methods (Kenney, 1987).
Who looked at individual vigilantism?
Johnston 1996
What did Johnston (1996) find?
Stephen Owen was acquitted by a jury after he had admitted shooting the lorry driver who had been sentenced to 18 months in prison for knocking down and killing his son (Johnston, 1996). The driver had held no driving licence and had a string of convictions for motoring and violence offences.
What is the danger of organised group vigilantism?
Having acquired power, some vigilante groups will be loathe to quietly relinquish it.
A number of vigilante groups have gradually progressed into full-scale terrorist campaigns
Israel in the 1980s and 1990s
South Africa in the 1990s.
What is the popular support for vigilantism?
Paedophile-related vigilantism in the UK in July and August, 2000.
Paulsgrove estate, Portsmouth
Katrina Kessell.
While Kessell was giving a television interview during the height of the disturbances, her three-year-old son was found wandering alone near a busy road half-a-mile from their home
Who looked at approval of vigilantism?
Neapolitan 1987
What did Neapolitan (1987) find?
Research has shown that it is who you identify with (the vigilante or the victim) determines whether you will approve of vigilante behaviour
