Vigilante
Vigilantes are individuals or groups who take it upon themselves to enforce laws or punish perceived wrongdoers without any official legal authority. This phenomenon often arises in response to a perceived failure of law enforcement, leading to citizen patrols or community surveillance activities aimed at preventing crime. Historically, vigilantes have played complex roles, with roots in folklore and significant instances in American history, such as the San Francisco Vigilance Committee during the 1850s Gold Rush, which sought to address rampant crime amidst ineffective local authorities. However, vigilantism has also been associated with acts of persecution against minority groups, exemplified by organizations like the Ku Klux Klan.
In contemporary society, vigilantism manifests in various forms, including organized militias that claim to uphold constitutional rights, such as the Oath Keepers, as well as heavily armed groups patrolling immigration routes. These actions often polarize public opinion, with some viewing them as defenders of core values while others see them as threats to community safety. Additionally, the rise of digital vigilantism has led to grassroots efforts targeting online offenders, often employing controversial tactics like doxing. The motivations and consequences of vigilantism continue to provoke debate, particularly in regions facing significant government corruption or organized crime, such as in parts of Latin America and the Philippines.
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Subject Terms
Vigilante
A vigilante is a person with no legal law-enforcement authority who takes it upon him- or herself to apprehend and punish criminals. This definition can also extend to efforts to prevent crime through unofficial citizen patrols and other community surveillance activities. Additionally, vigilantes sometimes seek retribution for noncriminal acts that violate community rules, social codes of conduct, or political values.
Vigilantes may act independently or as part of an organized group. Their activities are often motivated by a real or perceived lack of local law enforcement or an impression that the existing law enforcement and criminal justice systems have failed in their duties. However, vigilantism in the United States is also historically associated with the persecution of religious and racial minority groups. The practice of vigilantism continues in the United States and many other countries around the world, with numerous analysts and watchdog groups reporting rises in such activity.
Brief History
The concept of vigilantism has deep historical roots and has been preserved in folklore, with characters like Robin Hood representing noble forms of unofficial justice. Yet, according to the viewpoints of most expert commentators, vigilantes are best understood as parallel actors who coexist with but operate outside of an organized criminal justice system. Historians often emphasize the long tradition of vigilante activity in the United States, with some even going as far as to characterize the very founding of the nation as a widespread vigilante uprising against British colonial officials.
Vigilantism was common during the early history of the United States, particularly in frontier areas where organized law enforcement was poorly established. On a large, organized scale, the San Francisco Vigilance Committee, founded in the 1850s during the California Gold Rush, provides an early and notorious example. The organization publicly acted to capture individuals accused of criminal acts, holding trials and imposing justice in the wake of weak responses by corrupt local law-enforcement authorities.
In other instances, vigilante activity targeted and persecuted religious and racial minorities. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints faced ongoing citizen attacks during the 1830s and 1840s, with results ranging from their expulsion from entire US states to the murders of church leaders Joseph Smith (1805–1844) and Hyrum Smith (1800–1844) at the hands of a vigilante mob. Meanwhile, the racist Ku Klux Klan (KKK) remains one of the most notorious vigilante organizations in American history. Founded in 1866 after the abolition of slavery, the KKK opposed government policies intended to lift African Americans to equal political and economic footing with White citizens. By 1870, the KKK was operating throughout the American South. At its peak in the 1920s, KKK membership was estimated to exceed 4 million. Though widely condemned, the group remains active today, albeit with a much smaller membership largely limited to scattered and remote areas.
Another noteworthy twentieth-century American vigilante trend saw citizen groups apprehend and punish bank robbers. Such groups were particularly active in Indiana and Iowa, where robberies became epidemic during the years leading up to the Great Depression (1929–1939).
Topic Today
Beyond isolated cases in which individuals take it upon themselves to punish criminals or avenge crimes, vigilante activity in the present-day often takes the form of organized citizen militias who claim to defend the US Constitution. Leveraging legal protections provided by the Second Amendment, such groups include the Oath Keepers, a self-described “patriot” militia founded in 2009. Associated with right-wing libertarianism, the Oath Keepers controversially patrolled the streets of Ferguson, Missouri, in the aftermath of the civil unrest following the fatal 2014 shooting of Michael Brown, an unarmed African American youth, by a White police officer.
Another contemporary organized vigilante movement seeks to enforce American immigration laws along the US-Mexico border. Heavily armed paramilitary organizations such as Arizona Border Recon (AZBR) have installed their own surveillance equipment and conduct routine patrols, trying to detain individuals that they believe have crossed the border illegally. According to AZBR members, the group’s objective is to interfere with the activities of Mexican drug cartels that routinely smuggle large quantities of illegal drugs into the United States through Arizona. Groups like the Oath Keepers and AZBR polarize public opinion into extremes that alternately view them as heroic defenders of core American values or dangerous hate groups.
Organized neighborhood watches have also been characterized by some as vigilante groups, particularly when they involve armed citizen patrols. One high-profile incident involving such a group occurred in 2012, when 17-year-old African American high school student Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in Sanford, Florida. Zimmerman claimed self-defense even though Martin was unarmed. He was controversially acquitted of second-degree murder charges.
At times vigilante's acts are celebrated by the public despite being illegal and often violent. This was the case with the 2024 assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare. Twenty-six-year-old Luigi Mangione shot Thompson in New York before fleeing. Public support for Mangione poured in, much to the horror of police in the area. Many citizens felt the killing was justified due to their frustration with the practices of United Healthcare and the healthcare system in general.
Internet-based forms of vigilantism have also emerged in the digital age. As with their offline counterparts, online vigilantes can act independently or as part of organized or decentralized groups. They typically take grassroots action in cases of perceived injustice, with many such vigilantes seeking to neutralize or punish the activities of sexual offenders who use the Internet to find victims. Online vigilantes have also been known to target prominent individuals and groups that hold controversial or opposing political viewpoints. Such actors frequently use tactics like publishing individuals’ private identifying information, such as their real name and address, which is known as “doxing.” They may also seek to hack or sabotage people’s email and social media accounts.
Complex debates over whether vigilantes correct or perpetrate injustice tend to be less pointed in other areas of the world where organized vigilantism often functions as a direct response to government and law-enforcement corruption. Many Latin American countries host active vigilante groups that fight back against organized crime syndicates and gangs. The Philippines has seen a surge of vigilante activity targeting known or alleged drug dealers, a trend that roughly coincided with the 2017 election of unorthodox populist Rodrigo Duterte as the country’s president. Vigilantes also wield significant influence in rural areas of South Africa beset by robberies and violent crime, and vigilante retribution against rapists is on the rise in countries such as India and Bangladesh.
Bibliography
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“Vigilantism.” The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, www.lds.org/study/history/topics/vigilantism?lang=eng. Accessed 19 Jan. 2025.