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Dealing with Vigilantism: Issues and Lessons for the Police

Article in The Police Journal · April 2001

DOI: 10.1177/0032258X0107400204

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ANDREW SILKE
Lecturer in Police Sfudres, University of Leicester

DEALING WITH VIGILANTISM:

ISSUES AND LESSONS FOR THE
POLICE
Introduction
Vigilantes pose an unusual problem for law-enforcement agencies. On
the one hand, police officers can understand what motivates the
vigilantes and some may even share some satisfaction in the ad hoc
punishment meted out to suspected criminals. On the other hand,
vigilantes often break the law in their efforts to punish alleged wrong-
doers, and sometimes their perceptions of what constitutes deviant
behaviour is not shared by the legal system. What, then, are police
officers to do? Do they energetically attempt to arrest and prosecute
vigilantes, and risk a backlash of negative publicity in both local and
wider communities, or do they quietly tolerate vigilantes in the hope
that they are more likely to do good than harm?
Perhaps the most surprising thing about vigilantism is that we do
not hear about it more often. It has long been recognised that, even for
countries with well-trained and reasonably well-equipped police forces,
most crime goes unpunished. A large amount of crime is never reported
to the authorities and of that which is reported only a relatively small
proportion leads to the conviction of an offender. Bearing this in mind,
one would be forgiven for thinking that a steady and sizeable amount of
vigilante activity should be fairly conìmon in most societies. Yet, it is
quite clear that while individual cases are occasionally brought to wider
notice, the general and prevailing impression is that vigilante acts are
relatively uncommon. When they do happen though, vigilante incidents
tend to atftact intense media attention. Such attention inevitably also
involves a close and often critical inspection of the current and past
activities of the police in the area and an intense scrutiny of the police
response to the vigilantism. Caught in the harsh glare of a media
spotlight there is little room for error and plenty of opportunity for
disaster.
The most common emotional reaction to crime is not, as people
often think, fear. Instead the most coÍrmon emotional reaction is anger.
V/hen someone's car is stolen they do not immediately fear for their
personal safety or fear anticipated future thefts. Rather, in the main the
victim experiences anger towards the perpetrator and a desire that they
should be punished. And punished severely. This general reaction is
particularly evident among the friends and families of victims. A rape
victim may be left traumatised and dominated by feelings of terror and

120 The Police Journal. Volume 74 (2001)

 anxiety in the wake of her experience but friends and family are more
likely to be dominated by feelings of anger towards the perpetrator. In
one case from Florida, six women whose friend was raped barged into
the house of the man who they believed was responsible. The women
quickly overpowered him, held him down and then slashed him with a
knife (Sederberg, 1978). This was an act of rage and anger, not of fear
and terror. The dominance of anger as a response to crime is a reality
that Western governments have shied away from. Instead, they conduct
surveys exploring 'fear of crime' which quietly send out a message that
anger and desire for retribution and vengeance do not exist, when, of
course, they do all too prevalently.
Yet, despite the normality of anger as a response to crime, retalia-
tion against criminals by victims or others appears to be relatively raÍe.
\When it does happen, retaliation is usually carried out by family
members or friends rather than by the victims themselves, but relatively
little vigilantism of any sort is recorded in off,cial statistics. It is
probable that the majority of vigilante incidents go unnoticed or
'Weisburd (1988)
unrecorded by the authorities. For example, found
that in an Israeli study over one quarter of the males surveyed reported
that they had engaged in some form of vigilante action (with over 6Vo
admitting to having taken part in violent vigilante acts against either
people or property).
The result is that hard facts on vigilantism are tough to come by. As
a phenomenon, remarkably little research has been carried out on it in
any form. Johnston (1996) noted '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'. In order to gain meaningful insight into the subject,
one often has to draw upon evidence gathered in other areas. For
example, in the US hard figures dealing with vigilante incidents do not
exist. However, related research does suggest that a potentially massive
amount of unreported private retaliation against criminals is occurring
each year. One survey found that adults in the US use guns for
'protective purposes' more than 2.5 million times each year. This is a
figure nearly five times higher than the actual number of crimes
committed with guns. Also in the US, each year potential victims of
crime kill between 1,400 and 3,200 criminals and injure a further
7,700-18,500 (Kovandzic, Kleck &, Gertz, 1998).
The picture painted from such rare studies is that violence in
reaction to crime is surprisingly çommon. However, it is important not
to be too influenced by these figures. We have long known that most
people, if given a choice, do not attempt to intervene or respond to
criminal acts. As the much discussed Kitty Genovese case poignantly
illustrated, bystanders can be astoundingly lax and reluctant to assist
the victims of even serious crime and one can comfortably assume that
vigilantism is in relative terms a rare reaction. Nevertheless, it does
happen and probably happens much more often than we would expect.
The aim of this article is to outline the motivations and circumstances

The Police Journal. Volume 74 (2001) 121

which lead people to engage in vigilantism and to highlight the lessons
this has foi poiice forcãs *tti"ft huu" to respond to this volatile and
deeply controversial realitY.

Who Becomes a Vigilante

Why do people become vigilantes? Sederberg (1978) argues that
vigiiantism iJ a desire to preserve social stability in the face of
behaviour that deviates from social nofins. As a result, some writers
have suggested that vigilantes are likely to possess certain personality
traits and characteristics (Kreml, 1916; Sederberg, 1978). Indeed they
suggest that a vigilante personality exists where individuals have
'highly order-prone personalities', are 'submissive to those seen as his
superiors', and have 'a fear of impulsiveness' and so forth. This, of
course, is complete rubbish. The authors who suggest this 'vigilante
personality' have no empirical evidence whatsoever to back up their
claims and as we shall see there is plenty of evidence instead to indicate
that vigilantes are essentially normal, ordinary people who get involved
in vigilantism for identifiable and understandable reasons.
Due to the lack of good research on vigilantes, it is necessary to
turn elsewhere to gain a possible appreciation for the forces at work.
V/hile relatively little research has been done on vigilantism per se, a
considerable amount of research has looked at the related issue of
bystander intervention during crimes. Of particular relevance here is
the phenomenon of direct intervention when bystanders directly inter-
vene to disrupt a crime.
Direct intervention by bystanders during crimes is a fairly uncom-
mon event (again the unfortunate case of Kitty Genovese is a telling
example). Staged experiments come to the same conclusions. For
example, Shotland and Straw (\976) found that less than one 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.
In another staged experiment, this time of arupe attack, even fewer
bystanders intervened to assist the victim (ust LIVo). Of those few who
did intervene only half actually attempted to enter the room where the
rape was occurring, the remainder stayed away from the door and
shouted. The lesson to be taken from these studies, combined with an
awareness of real-life cases, is that the vast majority of bystanders will
not attempt to intervene during a criminal episode. Who then are the
few who actually do risk direct crime prevention?
Huston, Ruggiero, Conner and Geis (1981) interviewed people who
had directly intervened in a criminal episode, were injured as a result

122 The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001)

and later received compensation for their injury. They found that
compared to a matched control group the interveners had witnessed
considerably more crime in the years prior to the incident and were
more likely to have been personally victimised themselves. They were
also more likely to have been trained in police work and first-aid
techniques, and were physically larger than the controls. Significantly,
Shotland and Strebbins (1980) found in their staged study that 78Vo of
the people who directly intervened were trained in self-defence tech-
niques or boxing.
There is evidence to suggest that the forces which motivate direct
interveners are the same forces at work for vigilantes. Weisburd (1988)
in a rare study of Israeli vigilantes found that the majority are male and
that, like the direct interveners, the vigilantes were much more likely
than non-vigilantes to have been personally victimised. Interestingly,
.Weisburd
also found that individuals who belonged to smaller com-
munities were more likely to become vigilantes and that among
communities of similar sizes it was the ones with higher rates of
victimisation which were most likely to produce vigilantes. Impor-
tantly, Weisburd did not find that personality factors such as con-
servative religious or political views were linked in any way to
vigilantism. Rather, the overriding finding from his study was that
personal experience combined with the community situation were the
important factors.
The issue of community has been identified as being of crucial
importance in direct interveners as well. Social psychology has long
been aware that people from large cities are less likely to help strangers
than people from smaller communities. Research related to vigilantism
indicates that more cohesive communities and communities which feel
particularly threatened by the deviant behaviour in question are much
more likely to show signs of vigilantism. Shotland and Goodstein
(1984) said that there were three requirements for vigilantism to occur.
First, the crimes must generate strong identification with the victim;
second, the crimes themselves are perceived as being particularly
threatening to the community's standards; and third, that there is
frustration with and a lack of confidence in the formal justice system.
Following from this, a simple prediction is that vigilantism will be
most common in communities which are reasonably cohesive but
which suffer from relatively serious crime problems. This prediction
has been borne out by evidence from the real world. For example,
Shotland (1976) noted that of the 7l police precincts in New York city
at the time of writing, the five precincts where spontaneous acts of
vigilantism had occurred were also the ones with the most serious
crime problems. The five areas were respectively ranked as the 1st,
Znd,7th,9th and 18th worst areas for robbery in the city. Similarly,
Weisburd in his Israeli study found that vigilantism was most common
in those communities which felt most at risk to external threats.

The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001) 123

 The lesson to take away from this is that when a reasonably
cohesive community experiences significant criminal or other deviant
activity, or the threãt ofsuch activity, it is likely that certain members
of thai community will begin to propose or to engage in vigilantism.
The individuals who actualty carry out acts of vigilantism will not
possess any particular personality type. Rather they will tend to be
physically more capable and confident people who may possess strong
äfntutions and loyalty to their community and who have probably
suffered higher thän ãverage victimisation themselves. In short, they
will be normal people who genuinely believe that vigilantism is a
justified ,.tpot tè ó a serious local problem. Both realising and
äccepting thiì are an important f,rst step for those police forces which
must respond to the Problem.

Appreciating the Popularity of Vigilantism

In Àpril 200õ a Norfolk farmer, Tony Martin, was jailed fo1 life for
shootìng dead one of two burglars whom he discovered in his house.
Martin fired an illegal, pump-action shotgun at the fleeing burglars- The
first burglar was shãt twicein the legs and though seriously injured still
burglar, Fred Barras,
-unug.ã to escape through a window. The second
*u, shot three tìmes atá di"d outside the house. Martin's home had
been burgled repeatedly, the last occasion being three months previous
to this fãtat mõident. Along with other locals, he had complained
vociferously about a poor police response to crimes in the area (there
was, for eiample, nô poHce station in the local village). The dead
burglar, while having 28 prior convictions for robbery, was still only 16
ye;s old. Martitr found guilty of murder and was sentenced to life
ris
imprisonment. However, there was widespread arlger at th9 murder
conviction. Up to 300,000 readers of one tabloid newspaper telephoned
to protest at the conviction and leading politicians spoke out in
Martin's defence (Ronson, 2000).
Later that year even more serious events occurred. In July the News
of the Wortdi a tabloid Sunday newspaper, began a campaign of
p"oUtirtring the names, addresses and photographs of convicted paedo-
þnit.r *ño *"te now living in the coillmunity. The campaign was
of Sarah
þrimarily a reaction to the abduction, molestation and murder
Þuyn", án 8-year-old girl, earlier in the summer. The paper called its
campaign 'Fõr Sarah' and claimed that the little girl's murder,proved
that polli." monitoring of paedophiles was inadequate. Following
publiôation of the namés and photographs, vigilante groups, composed
mainly of parents who believed they now had convicted paedophiles
living in iheir local areas, mounted aggressive protests outside the
housés of suspected paedophiles. The vigilantism resulted in two men
accused of child sex offences conìmitting suicide and flve innocent
families in Portsmouth alone were forced to flee from their homes after
they were mistakenly rumoured to be harbouring paedophit"l. Gang
attácks on suspected sex offenders occurred in Plymouth and V/hitely,

t24 The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001)

and other incidents occurred throughout the rest of the UK. In one
particularly bizane incident in Newport, a female hospital doctor was
forced to flee her home after it was attacked by vigilantes who were
confused between the words 'paediatrician' and 'paedophile' (Allison,
2000).
Eventually intense political and media pressure forced the News of
the World to abandon its campaign and the vigilantism subsequently
declined. Yet the highly controversial campaign enjoyed massive
support from many quarters. The paper itself reported that it received
over 5,000 letters from readers about the campaign, of which only 15
were critical. Tellingly, the circulation of the paper increased by nearly
100,000 copies (the editors had actually expected that the focus on the
campaign would result in a drop in circulation) (Greenslade, 2000).
Polls surveying for the level of support for vigilante actions have
generally found that usually at least 40 to 50Vo of the population are
supportive of vigilante actions (Neapolitan, 1987, Perry & Pugh, 1989).
This level of support can increase dramatically to between 70 and 90Vo
in communities where there is a greater perceived risk of victimisation
(lileisburd, 1988, Sluka, 1989, Girling, Loader and Sparks, 1998).
Research looking at the Guardian Angels movement in the US has
found that the subway patrols mounted by the Angels were viewed in a
generally favourable light. Sixty-one per cent of respondents reported
that the presence of the Guardian Angels reduced their own fear of
crime; 667o believed that the Angels actually reduced crime. Overall,
747o of respondents reported that they approved of the Angels and their
methods (Kenney, 1981). (It is perhaps significant to note though that
other research indicated that the Angels did not seem to have any
positive impact on recorded crime in the areas in which they oper-
ated.)
In Northern Ireland, where vigilantism by the paramilitary groups
has long been a controversial issue, so-called punishment beatings and
shootings have enjoyed surprisingly consistent popularity with locals.
In 1973 a coilìmunity survey was carried out in a nationalist area of
Belfast to assess local attitudes to issues such as crime and policing. In
a stark illustration of the alienation felt by much of the nationalist
population towards the official security forces, barely 3Vo of respond-
ents said that they would be prepared to give even general support to
the official police force, the RuC. Over 60Vo of the respondents wanted
some form of paramilitary community policing. Nine years later, a
survey in another nationalist area of Belfast found that777o of the local
population felt the paramilitaries were needed to fulfil a vigilante role.
A survey conducted in 1991 in the wake of a high-profile case showed
that while only 24Vo of the those living in the area felt the para-
militaries 'had a right to punish alleged offenders' a further 32Vo of the
residents nevertheless approved of the paramilitaries' actions in this
particular case (that is, the expulsion of two alleged criminals from the

The Police Joumal, Volume 74 (2001) 12s

estate). In short, there was a majority approval rating of 56Vo (Silke,
2000).
The central message from all these findings is that vigilantism, no
matter how controversial, nearly always enjoys a considerable degree
of ground-level support. Spontaneous vigilantism, either by individuals
or by groups, is normally isolated, short-lived and transitory. The level
of risk to the targets of such attacks is probably greater in the case of
groups but, as the Martin case illustrates, individuals are capable of
inflicting extreme and excessive violence. Nevertheless, because of their
spontaneous nature these events tend to be one-offs and are not likely to
pose a serious threat in and of themselves.
Where vigilantism becomes more organised the situation then does
become an especially serious cause for concern, whereas individual
vigilantism, even if well-organised, is unlikely to pose a serious threat.
Such cases are likely to be motivated by very personal circumstances.
For example, in May 1992 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. Stephen Owen was
only interested in punishing the man who had killed his son. Once that
had been achieved he had no desire to attempt to punish other drivers
who had killed people in road accidents. Likewise, very few lone
vigilantes are likely to be involved in a series of incidents against
multiple targets. Their campaigns are likely to be short-lived and
tightly focused.
In contrast, organised group vigilantism has the potential to be very
dangerous. As can be seen from many of the cases already mentioned,
vigilantism occurs when there is a perceived weakness in the ability of
the formal criminal justice system to respond to particular activity and
as such is normally a short-lived phenomenon. The authority and
capability of the formal system usually reasserts itself within a short
period of time. However, this is not always, the case. So long as the gap
remains, the vigilante in taking on the responsibilities of the formal
justice system, in effect, also takes on the authority of the role. If the
incident is isolated and short-lived this will not carry any significant
implications, but if the vigilantism is widespread and prolonged it
inevitably means that the vigilantes will co-opt the position of power
that is normally the reserve of the criminal justice system. Thus, a
sustained vigilante campaign will allow the perpetrators to access the
power, authority and influence ,which is normally held by police
officers, judges, prison officers and probation officers (that is, some of
the most important and powerful positions in society).
Having acquired such power, some vigilante groups will be loath to
relinquish it quietly. Some groups can become increasingly extreme.
For example, in the recent past a number of vigilante groups have
gradually progressed into full-scale terrorist campaigns in which they

126 The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001)

have not simply continued to attack their original targets but have
turned to attacking the government and the security forces. This
happened in Israel in the 1980s and 1990s and in South Africa in the
1990s. Vigilante hostility towards the police and the government
should not be surprising. Even vigilantes who publicly advocate
cooperation with the police can hold very negative and antagonistic
views of local law-enforcement agencies. Many vigilantes believe they
are doing a job which the police have failed to take on and this breeds
resentment and mistrust. For example, while a number of surveys
indicated that the police generally held either favourable or neutral
views on the Guardian Angels, the leadership of that organisation
believed that they were targets for police hostility. Curtis Sliwa, the
leader of the Guardian Angels, is reported as having

described police-backed assaults on himself, a rape of his wife by

assailants he suspects to be police officers, and the constant
harassment of Angel patrols by on-duty police officers. Although
few of these incidents have been independently verified, some
writers have nonetheless attributed this tension to jealousy and self-
interest on the part of the police. (Kenney, 1987, p.96)

Researchers have noted that the tension in the police/vigilante

relationship tends to come most often (at least with regard to the
Guardian Angels) from the Angels' side and not from the police. It was
the vigilantes who were critical of the practices of the other. This
situation with the Guardian Angels, who afe a relatively restrained and
law-abiding organisation, is mirrored in other vigilante movements,
many of which aÍe far more violent and far less concerned with
adhering to the letter of the law. It is not a massive leap for such
movements eventually to begin to vent their rage and frustration on the
authorities (especially as they become more established in their com-
munities).
While the vigilantes quite often feel antagonistic towards the police,
as indicated above quite often the reverse is not the case. A fact which
is sometimes overlooked is that vigilantism is often quite popular
among police officers. For example, Kenney (1987), in his study of the
Guardian Angels' activities in New York, found that when police
officers were privately surveyed, a clear majority (73Vo) reported that
they approved of both the organisation and its methods.
Evidence from elsewhere indicates that such support is not uncom-
mon. In a case from June 1993, two Norfolk men, convicted for
kidnapping and threatening a youth suspected of involvement in a spate
of local burglaries, had their sentences reduced to six months by the
Court of Appeal following a public campaign for their release. The men
in question had abducted the boy from a street, interrogated him, and
threatened to cut him with a knife and douse him in petrol before
finally abandoning him by the roadside. It was later alleged, though the

The Police Journal, Vo\ume 74 (2001) 127

police strongly denied it, that the information on which the two
vigilantes acted was provided to them by a community constable who
was frustrated by his inability to get sufficient evidence to prosecute the
boy (Johnston, 1996). Even if this particular accusation is unfounded, it
is probably fair to say that there are other incidents of collusion which
are real.
For example, very surprising evidence of cooperation between
violent vigilantes and the police exists with regard to Northern Ireland.
Despite the fact that the police and the paramilitaries are essentially
mortal enemies, there is còmpelling evidence that occasionally police
officers have cooperated with and supported the activities of the
paramilitaries' vigilante systems. Consider the following account from
an RUC sergeant who worked in an arca of Belfast that had a very
strong loyalist paramilitary presence. The sergeant was describing
events which occurred after an elderly woman had been particularly
brutally attacked in the district:
Two days later a top UDA man was brought into the station, for
what I didn't know. I was SDO (Station Duty Officer) and was
taking the opportunity to complete some flles. The UDA man came
to the front desk to be released. I looked at him with thinly
disguised disgust. 'You people make me sick, do you know that?
You're out rioting. Two days ago you shot up my police vehicle . . .
and while you're doing that, this little old lady was beaten half to
death for a few pounds in her purse.' I showed him the photograph
. 'This is your community and you let this happen to a
defenceless old woman. Like I say, you make me sick.' . . . About
a week later, a local thug was found, shot in both elbows and legs.
Around his neck was a handwritten sign saying: 'Mugger of old
ladies'. (McCallioû 1995, pp.258-9)
This unexceptional incident is telling for a number of reasons. At
the very least, it can be taken as evidence that there was a degree of
tolerance within the police towards the vigilantism. As seen from
surveys of the victims of vigilante assaults, in most cases the targets of
the attacks are individuals the police themselves would also like to
punish (Silke, 2000). However, the incident above also shows that
tolerance can sometimes extend to encouragement and even subtle
support for the paramilitaries' vigilante activities.
There are also suggestions that, at least at street level, in many areas
there operated a de facto recognition from the RUC of the ptra-
militaries' 'policing' role. Such recognition of the unoff,cial justice
system is something that local residents have long come to accept, a
point which again is well illustrated in the following comments from a
community worker:
There are unwritten rules between the police and paramilitaries
about policing in these areas. People in West Belfast - both

128 The Police Journal, Volume 74 (2001)

 Catholic and Protestant - found that the RUC was not responsive to
cases of break-ins, burglaries and theft. In the Protestant areas it
was not really because they were afraid of being attacked. They just
abdicated responding to normal crime calls and put all of their
energies into fighting a war against terrorists. All their resources
went to fighting terrorists, so people had to go to the paramilitaries
for justice. About eighteen months ago some hooligans broke fire
hydrants in this area [Shankill Road] and there was no water
pressure. Some housewives went to the RUC and the RUC told
them to call the UDA. On other occasions they have told repub-
licans to call the IRA. (Human Rights WatchÆ{elsinki, 1997,
pp.37-8)

It seems clear that at various times and places the RUC, or at least
significant elements within the RUC, encouraged and facilitated the
paramilitaries' vigilantism. Undeniably this was never officially sanc-
tioned policy. But the fact remains that permissive and facilitative
attitudes and practices were coilrmonplace in a number of areas.
The tacit acknowledgement that the police sometimes give to
vigilantes, even if only on a sporadic basis, could not but have a telling
impact on the local communities involved. Tacit acknowledgement,
regardless of however reluctantly given, serves ultimately to empower
and legitimise the vigilantism. Such practices make it easier for the
communities involved to accept the vigilantism as legitimate and
congruent. This is a serious and costly trap which police forces must be
careful to avoid.

Effective Responses to Vigilantism

In order to deal with and defuse a vigilante movement, two primary
issues must be tackled. The first of these issues is for the police to
recognise that vigilantism is a response by individuals who perceive
that a serious and genuine problem exists with deviant behaviour. Most
of the time, vigilantism is at heart a reaction of normal people.
Vigilantes are neither lone psychopaths nor bloodthirsty mobs, and it is
both misleading and dangerous to see them only in such terms. In the
case of spontaneous vigilante incidents, the problem may be fleeting
and transitory and the police will not necessarily have to be overly
concerned about repeat incidents. But in the case of organised vigilant-
ism, more serious action will be needed. Vigilantism nornally arises
from a policing vacuum: the vigilantes perceive that the police are
either unable or unwilling to control certain deviant behaviour. It will
be important for the police to outline carefully and explicitly how they
currently do attempt to control this deviant behaviour and, if necessary,
for them to propose new strategies for dealing with it.
For certain types of behaviour this will not always be possible or
desirable. However, senior officers need to recognise that if policing is
genuinely inadequate in a certain area there will inevitably exist within

.rt-^ D^t:^^ Í^.,.-^^t r/^t...^-^ "7/ /.rnnr \ t'rr¡

that community the potential for serious vigilante violence, either by
individuals or by groups. This potential can be ignited by both local
and national events (such as the anti-paedophile vigilantism which
spread around the UK after the murder of Sarah Payne and the
subsequent newspaper campaign).
Thè second factor the police must contend with is the especially
thorny question of popular support for vigilantism. As we have aheady
seen, vigilantism can be overwhelmingly popular and in some circum-
stances ihe vigilantes can prove to be far more popular than the police
themselves. Credible efforts to address the wider circumstances behind
the vigilantism can help to undermine support in the long term but will
probably have only a limited effect in the short and medium term.
Indeed, addressing the circumstances may be beyond the resources or
remit of the local police force and can often be an issue which can only
be tackled at regional or national levels. The inevitable result is that the
police will have to cope with relatively high levels of support for the
vigilantism in the short and medium term and will have to develop
strategies to tackle this.
Two factors helped seriously to undermine the spate of paedophile-
related vigilantism in the UK in July and August, 2000- The first was
the significant amount of media attention focused on those cases where
innocént victims were attacked. Incidents such as the bizane attack by
a gangwho did not understand the difference between 'paedophile' and
'pãediatrician' served only to undermine the legitimacy of the vigilant-
iim. But apartfrom such high-profile mistakes, the vigilantes were also
signif,cantiy hurt by more personal weaknesses within their ranks. The
Paulsgrove estate in Portsmouth was the scene of some of the most
intense vigilante activity. Locals formed Residents Against Paedophiles
(RAP), u g.o.rp which drew up a list of 20 suspected sex offenders (the
majority of whom were indeed convicted paedophiles). Related to the
issue of circumstances, it would also later emerge that a disproportion-
ately high number of released paedophiles had been housed on the
estate und -uny of these now lived within yards of the local school.
These factors may have played a role in explaining the singular
intensity and virulence of the subsequent vigilante campaign on the
estate.
The vigilantes lost ground, however, when it came to light that they
had attacked a number of innocent people. Arguably even more
damaging was the behaviour of RAP's self-proclaimed leader, Katrina
Kessell. \ù/hile Kessell was giving a television interview during the
height of the disturbances, her 3-year-old son was found wandering
alone near a busy road half a mile from their home. The police called in
social services to investigate the case (Ronson, 2000). Kessell's reputa-
tion was further damaged when at the same time newspapers learned
that she had been convicted of assaulting a police officer ten years
previously.

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 Research has shown that it is who you identify with (either the
vigilante or the victim) that determines whether you will approve of
vigilante behaviour (Neapolitan, 1987).In short, so long as people do
not identify with the targets of the vigilantism, they will continue to
support it. This stopped happening in August as more and more cases
of mistaken identity and attacks against innocents came to light. The
second factor is that people will only support vigilantism so long as
they feel they can identify with the vigilantes themselves. Kessell's
apparent negligence in caring for her own child seriously undermined
the ability of people to identify with her. News of her conviction for
violent assault against a police officer created a further gulf between
her and potential supporters. It was not surprising that support for the
vigilantism rapidly dried up and the incidents ended (though RAP itself ,

has endured albeit in vastly subdued form).

Had the vigilantes been more accurate in their targeting, and had
they been better able to hide their own inadequacies and failings, then
wider support for the vigilantism could have been sustained for a
markedly longer time. It is when vigilantism has had an opportunity to
entrench itself within a coÍrmunity that the biggest threat is posed.
Such vigilantism inevitably usurps some of the power and authority of
the official criminal justice system. Once it reaches a certain level of
power it can be extremely difficult to dislodge and, as has happened in
numerous other countries, entrenched vigilantes can progress into more
serious and more lethal campaigns of violence. To prevent this from
happening, the police are recoÍìmended to take a somewhat circum-
spect approach in dealing with vigilantism. Rather than favour a direct
confrontational policy (the latent popularity of vigilantism really works
against this), police should seek to undermine the vigilantism in more
indirect ways. First, every effort should be made to highlight cases
where innocent people have been targeted by the vigilantes (either
mistakenly or intentionally). If innocent people are being attacked, then
this means that anyone in the wider society could be attacked by the
vigilantes. In the absence of such errors in the local situation, police
officers should be quick to highlight and recount abuses from other
areas and time periods. Emphasising this message undermines support
for the vigilantes. Second, efforts should be made to distinguish the
vigilantes from wider society as far as this is possible. The Kessell case
is a telling example of how this can happen in real life. It is vital,
however, that whatever issues are raised in this rcgard are true and
accurate. Itis important that this focus should not be excessive,
however. Allegations of a smear campaign can work to foster support
for the vigilantes at least within their immediate communities. Instead,
there should be a focus on clearly unambiguous facts and events.

Conclusions
No police system and no police force is perfect. Much crime will go
undetected and unpunished and the inevitable result of this is that

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among every community there will be a constant potential for vigilant-
ism. When the police are confronted with the presence and activities of
vigilantes, they need to understand quickly the nature of this threat (and
it is a threat) and to understand, too, that they are now involved in a
hearts-and-minds struggle with the vigilantes for the support of local
communities. Winning this hearts-and-minds struggle is the priority. To
ignore it is to risk allowing a strong and powerful vigilante movement
to cement itself within local society and to alienate the police still
further from those neighbourhoods which are already in trouble. In the
recent past, countries which have lost this struggle have paid a heavy
price as the vigilantes gradually became increasingly powerful, increas-
ingly extreme and increasingly violent.
In large measure, organised vigilantism can be prevented by effec-
'When
tive policing policies combined with good community relations.
vigilante incidents do happen however, local police need to recognise
that at least one of these qualities, and more likely both, are absent. The
long-term goals of the force have to address such deficiencies. In
the short and medium term, intense care is needed to ensure that the
vigilante campaign does not receive the opportunity and room first to
win and then hold the support of local people. This is a crucial stage
and police officers need to recognise the considerable latent popularity
which vigilantism nearly always enjoys in its early stages. As indicated
in the cases discussed earlier, such popularity will not necessarily
endure and support can be quickly eroded if the right approaches are
taken.
Thankfully most vigilante campaigns are limited, short-lived
affairs. However, if they are mishandled or ignored by the legitimate
authorities, they then have the potential to become highly organised
and extremely dangerous threats to the authority and influence of police
officers within the affected communities. Care, attention and a degree
of flexibility are vital in ensuring this does not happen.

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