Shadow Vigilantes: How Distrust in the Justice System Breeds a New Kind of Lawlessness

✍ Scribed by Robinson, Paul H; Robinson, Sarah M

• Book ID: 109861429
• Publisher: Prometheus Books
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 4 MB
• Category: Fiction
• ISBN-13: 9781633884328

✦ Synopsis

A form of subtle vigilantism threatens to undermine the justice system and is eroding community trust in law enforcement.
This book describes a pervasive and destructive problem afflicting our current justice system, one that is eroding community confidence in law enforcement. The authors call it "shadow vigilantism"—a vicious cycle in which ordinary people, as well as criminal justice officials, are so fed up with the system's failures that they distort and subvert the system to force it to do the justice that it seems so reluctant to do on its own. The effects of this lack of trust are pervasive and pernicious: citizens refuse to report a crime or help investigators; jurors refuse to indict or convict; and officials manipulate a system that is perceived to be unreliable. This downward spiral eventually undermines the moral authority of law enforcement and creates widening rifts in the community.