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Northwest Nigeria has been devastated by armed banditry, with Zamfara state being the epicenter of the crisis. The use of vigilantes in non-state policing against armed banditry has accorded legitimacy to these groups. However, their activities also pose significant challenges. Where scholarly work has examined the legitimacy of vigilantes, the focus has mostly been on legitimacy derived from the nation-state. This paper, contributes to the literature by interrogating the legitimacy of vigilantism as a non-state policing tool toward countering armed banditry, derived from affected local communities in Zamfara state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What role do the perceptions of clients about the procedural justice that street-level bureaucrats (SLBs) use when implementing policy play in prompting citizens to engage in vigilante actions? Using qualitative methods, we examine the unintended effects of SLBs' implementation of policy on citizens' vigilantism. We contribute to the literature by showing that procedural justice on the street level is in fact an important factor in citizens' decisions to act as vigilantes. Our findings identified three significant factors in these decisions: the citizens' ability to voice their complaint, the sense that they were treated respectfully and their trust that the police officers would do what they could to deal with their complaint. Furthermore, we also demonstrated that citizens and SLBs do not share the same perceptions of the role of the police as service providers, and that this gap increases citizens' motivations to act independently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Citizen involvement in the provision of security is often presented as a win–win way to relieve pressure on police resources while building stronger, more responsible and democratically engaged communities. Governments in countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have adopted a 'strategy of responsibilisation' designed to encourage, enable and support citizens to take on tasks otherwise left for police. Yet, this strategy conspicuously ignores the growing number of citizen-led digital policing initiatives which operate independently without the encouragement or guidance of police. This article considers the implications of this trend for democratic norms in policing. It uses the phenomenon of self-styled paedophile hunters – which are now active in countries around the world – as a case study. The article makes comparisons between such initiatives and other, relatively well-theorised informal security providers, such as vigilante groups and civilian policing. It argues that, like vigilantes, citizen-led digital police often challenge democratic principles of transparency, accountability and the rule of law. Yet, like other civilian policing initiatives, they increase empowerment and participation, and rely for their success on the presence of strong and legitimate institutions of justice, to which they ultimately defer. These characteristics present a discreet set of opportunities and challenges for contemporary policing, which this article argues can only be addressed by strategic police engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Moral entrepreneurs who volunteer to enforce rules by themselves have spread in 2010s Russia. As 'rule enforcers' they patrol the streets to catch offenders. Some of these enforcers have conflictual relations with the police, while others operate in cooperation with it. This essay describes the development of vigilante justice in contemporary Russia. Two particularities of the Russian case are striking. First, the activities of several citizen policing initiatives are in fact recorded and posted on YouTube and VKontakte, where they reach a large audience, generating support for their activities and, in particular, for the leaders of such groups. Second, the development of these groups is not the simple outcome of a powerless state failing to maintain order or to fight crime. The essay will reveal how these new forms of policing contribute, paradoxically, to the strengthening of state authority. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article seeks to explore the phenomenon of the so-called "paedophile hunters". These are members of the public who see themselves as protecting children by visiting social media sites posing as children and engaging with adults who seek to exploit children sexually. They typically film subsequent encounters with the adults involved and pass the information to the police to investigate as a potential sexual offence. While the police condemn these activities as vigilantism, it is clear that both the police and courts will act upon the evidence. However, questions are being asked about whether hunters entrap those that they suspect of abuse, and whether the courts should accede to submissions that the actions of paedophile hunters lead to an abuse of process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, vigilante groups and other informal policing structures have assumed a greater role in the security architecture of many countries, especially those that exited from authoritarian order. In spite of this development, however, issues and concerns are constantly being raised about them regarding whether they could really be agents of democratic policing against the backdrop of their penchant for human rights violations and extra-judicial killings. It is against this background that this article examines the balance sheet of vigilante groups in a democratizing Nigeria. Following an extensive review of extant literature on police, policing, vigilantism and vigilante groups, as well as relevant studies on vigilante groups in Nigeria, it observes and notes that unlike the practice in liberal democracies, where vigilante groups - in conduct and practice - conform to principles of rule of law and constitutionalism, the opposite is the case in a democratizing Nigeria. It argues and concludes that as long as the vigilante groups, like the formal policing establishments, remain the instruments of intimidation of political opponents by the politicians that control them; the terrain of vigilantism would continue to be in the realm of 'anocracy'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Vigilante justice challenges the state's monopoly over the use of violence and as such has come to the attention of a growing body of political scholars. However, still little is known about the circumstances that foster support for citizens circumventing the state to confront crime directly. I argue that citizens' perceptions of a trusting community, on the one hand, and an untrustworthy law enforcement, on the other, jointly influence their support for this kind of behavior. I test these hypotheses using a lab-in-the-field experiment in Mexico, a case in which the expansion of vigilante organizations has posed a serious challenge to the state. I find that participants are more supportive of a vigilante action when those considering said action are described to be inserted within a trustworthy community. Furthermore, I find that this effect is moderated by the described trustworthiness of law enforcement. These results contribute to our understanding of the emergence of vigilantism, and how trust in authorities can moderate the normative expression of social capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

States are saddled with the responsibility of protecting the citizenry from internal insurrection and external aggression. Formal policing sector is perceived as the most appropriate security forces to mitigate civil crises within the community. In the recent times the use of the police is been joggled with the vigilante in most developing democracies. The vigilantes are seen as more effective in curbing immediate crime and deterring future crimes than the conventional police. The objective of this paper is to determine the extent of public trust for the security (police and vigilante) agents in Nigeria. The theoretical framework of Chaos theory and Tyre burning model are adopted to analyze crime while the data from Afrobarometer database and researchers' fieldwork are analyzed to see the perception of Nigerians on security and safety of their community. Policy recommendations of co-security options with basic legislation to reduce the unprofessional-ism of the security sectors are proffer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The doctrine of citizen's arrest in the United States has been ignored for far too long. In every jurisdiction in the United States, a private person may lawfully detain another and often may even use physical force to do so. Placing such power in the hands of ordinary, untrained individuals creates the possibility that citizens will misuse or abuse the privilege, sometimes with serious consequences for both the arrestor and the arrestee. This risk is compounded by the disparate treatment of the citizen's arrest doctrine in different jurisdictions and the ambiguities inherent in many of the doctrine's key features--such as whether one may arrest another only on suspicion of a felony, or also for a misdemeanor or breach of the peace; the level of probable cause required to make an arrest; the length of detention that is legally permitted; and the appropriate amount of force used to effectuate the arrest. Citizen's arrest arose in medieval times as a direct result of the lack of an organized police force and practical modes of transportation to get to the scene of a crime expeditiously. Citizens had a positive duty to assist the King in seeking out suspected offenders and detaining them. However, citizen's arrest is a doctrine whose time should have passed many decades--or centuries-- ago. A s official police forces became the norm, the need for citizen's arrest dissipated. Yet these arrests are still authorized throughout the United States today, whether by common law or by statute. With the core principles of citizen's arrest in flux, it is exceedingly difficult for private individuals to understand the doctrine's subtleties and to effectuate arrests lawfully, safely, and without fear of reprisal. Implementation is ripe for abuse. Moreover, citizen's arrests performed by private persons acting collectively as volunteer watch groups, such as the Guardian Angels, are equally susceptible to misuse. Therefore, this Article recommends drastic restrictions on the scope of the citizen's arrest doctrine in general and that its use be confined to three categories: shopkeepers, out-of-jurisdiction police, and private police forces with appropriate training and oversight. In all other instances, the doctrine of citizen's arrest should be abolished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A growing scholarship on policing and security has produced valuable insights into the workings of private security firms, state police, and citizen-led policing organizations across Africa. In contrast, few have explored “mob justice” – the policing performed by less organized, more transient formations of citizens. In academic and popular accounts, mobs are depicted as anonymous, sovereign entities, acting in a space that the state will not, or cannot, enter. Focusing on the township of KwaMashu in Durban, South Africa, this article challenges this homogeneous depiction. Although anonymous mobs punctuate the township's history, residents often find themselves within “intimate crowds”, navigating the ties that frequently bind them to their suspects, and negotiating a space in which they can act without fear of repercussion, legal or otherwise. The state police often play an important role in shaping the parameters of this policing, even when no case is formally opened. This reappraisal of policing formations consolidates and extends our understanding of statehood, society, and sovereignty in post-apartheid South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

El terror que provoca la devastación del Estado deshabilita el psiquismo, interviene en la educación sentimental, vulnera la confianza en sí mismo, genera incertidumbre sobre la situación de estabilidad de los seres queridos, propicia la suspicacia, la pérdida de referentes y la anulación del sujeto. El nosotros sufre una fuerte regresión a la pregunta por la precariedad del yo. Desde este lugar de observación intento plantear algunas reflexiones parciales e incompletas (en el momento actual del país no podrían ser de otra manera) para contribuir a la configuración colectiva de una lectura de inteligibilidad del momento histórico por el que estamos atravesando. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the ways in which African approaches to policing challenge western preferences for transparent and equitable forms of partnership-based policing. It uses the experience of the Nigeria Police Force in metropolitan Kano to question the value of police–public partnerships as the best way to tackle crime and communal conflict in cities where multiple religious and secular norms and processes affect the meaning and delivery of security and justice. Based on recent fieldwork, the article argues that while the need to negotiate with Kano’s semi-state and informal policing providers has not reconfigured the Nigerian police’s authority practices, the city’s relative stability owes much to the political and technical skills with which senior officers manage Kano’s competitive environment. Policing in Kano emphasizes the need for clarity of purpose, actionable intelligence and robust operations, rather than partnership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Organised violence strongly shapes political boundaries. The modern state's monopoly on legitimate violence has made national borders the primary dividing line between peaceful and violent places. However, governments that are unable to achieve such a monopoly may opt for the more modest goal of moderating the distribution of violent behaviour across their jurisdiction. This paper explores how this latter approach redefines the contours of political space through a grounded ethnography of crime control strategies in Johannesburg, South Africa. In the postapartheid era, South African police and vigilantes have synthesised statistically oriented policing logics with the racial policing tactics of the past to anticipate, locate, isolate, and redistribute patterns of violent crime. In so doing, they have created forms of territorial power and violence that are neither new nor old, but undeniably postsovereign. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the application and adaptation of law enforcement institutions developed in England in the British North American colony of South Carolina. After introductory remarks on the processes of state formation in early modern Europe, the author describes the social and political context of South Carolina in the 18th century, particularly the evolution of the colonial system of civil and criminal justice administration. He emphasizes the importance of South Carolina's situation as a plantation economy with a slave population majority for the development of police practices designed to uphold slavery and to implicitly encourage vigilante justice.

Based on the example of the Oodua People's Congress (OPC) in Nigeria, this article argues that vigilante activities are embedded in a range of social relations and historical trajectories. While vigilantism transforms relationships of power within the state, it does not necessarily undermine all aspects of state authority. After the annulled presidential election of a Yoruba speaker in 1993, the OPC was founded with the explicit political aim of safeguarding Yoruba ethno-nationalist interests vis-à-vis the state. By fighting crime, and state institutions perceived to be implicated in the perpetration of crime, including the police and military, the OPC's vigilantes have undermined and challenged the state's security institutions. Representing the state as both weak and strong, the OPC has undermined the state's control of security but legitimised and strengthened the state as a mechanism of political decision-making and social reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This article provides a systematic analysis of vigilante homicides that occurred in Ghana, West Africa, during 1990–2000. Through the use of newspaper accounts, the study identified the socio-demographic characteristics of victims, spatial distribution, modus operandi, and the circumstances of death. The data suggested that young urban males suspected or accused of robbery, larceny, and other forms of theft were most often victims of vigilante killings. Mob attacks were spontaneous and the assaults involved the use of weapons available on the scene, such as stones, sticks, clubs, and personal weapons. Factors contributing to the escalation of vigilantism in the society included an under-resourced police force, poor police-civilian relations, burgeoning crime rate, a slow and overburdened judiciary, heightened public fear of crime, and a breakdown in traditional methods of dispute resolution. The article also reports on a survey that targeted the attitudes of a sample of law enforcement officers towards vigilantism in Ghana. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Focuses on the relationship between the vigilantes and the police in San Francisco, California. Achievements of the San Francisco police; Convention of the chambers of the bicameral city council; Occurrence of racist violence and class-conscious radicalism.

Abstract: Focusing on the case of young socialist vigilantes who were arrested and imprisoned as ‘terrorists’ in 2007, this article illustrates how vigilantism in working‐class neighbourhoods of Istanbul with a high Alevi population evolved from an unarmed, public and participatory form of vigilantism to an armed one, and discusses the role of the anti‐terror law in this transformation. The article illustrates the ways in which the anti‐terror law, by narrowing the space for civil politics, paved the way for youth engagement in violent forms of extra‐legal security practice in spaces occupied by the historically stigmatized working‐class Alevi population. The article also argues that, over the last decade, Turkey’s ruling elites have used the anti‐terror law to wage a war against the oppositional politics conducted by the country’s historically stigmatized populations (such as Kurds and Alevis). Not only has this war put politically active and respected local figures from these communities behind bars, it also ‘polices’ (à la Rancière) these communities. Accordingly, the article illustrates how the law that considers attempts at self‐governance as a threat to state sovereignty effectively intervenes in local politics and space, leading to the reconfiguration of political space at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]