On popular vigilantism

Adam Kozman, Opinion Editor

In recent years, there’s been a rise in the popularity of civilian vigilante videos online. Videos where individuals take law enforcement into their own hands without any prior legal authority. The most popular of these videos being those predator catch videos everyone has seen.

The original idea of the predator catch was anchored by Chris Hansen, who would set up sting operations, where he would catch child predators with decoys and the backing of law enforcement. These catches were shown on primetime television for millions of people to see. A movie about Chris Hansen called “Primetime”, directed by Lance Oppenheim, is releasing in theaters on Sept. 26.

Chris Hansen’s predator catches do not count as vigilantism, though; he would always have law enforcement on site to carry out the needed process to enact justice on the predators. Recent videos online have not done that. There are countless posts on various social media platforms of catchers meeting up with predators in public places like stores, public parks and even national monuments. They chase them around, yelling, letting everyone know that the person is a predator, and sometimes enacting physical violence on them without any effort to notify authorities, taking matters into their own hands. This is vigilantism. 

The problem with videos like this is that without notifying any law enforcement, no real justice is being carried out. The act of filming, public humiliation and senseless violence is not justice; it’s more personal satisfaction than anything or a way for someone to boost their supposed morals in the view of others or even to increase popularity online. They aren’t doing it for the real justice of it all; it’s for personal gain, which is very much against the whole idea of the vigilante. Ideally, a vigilante shows a selfless concern for the well–being of others, willing to venture into danger to stand up to the injustice they see, not wanting any other personal gain out of it other than carrying out justice.