Public support for vigilantism

Public support for vigilantism: an experimental study

Nicole E. Haas, Jan W. de Keijser & Gerben J. N. Bruinsma

Journal of Experimental Criminology ISSN 1573-3750 J Exp Criminol DOI 10.1007/s11292-012-9144-1

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Author's personal copy J Exp Criminol DOI 10.1007/s11292-012-9144-1

Public support for vigilantism: an experimental study Nicole E. Haas & Jan W. de Keijser & Gerben J. N. Bruinsma

# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract Objectives To empirically examine the absolute and relative impact of situational characteristics and confidence in the criminal justice system on public support for vigilantism. Methods In an experimental study with a between-subjects design, members of a Dutch household panel (n 0 1,930) responded to vignettes about vigilantism that were varied across two experimental factors: (1) type of precipitating crime and (2) type of formal sentence for the precipitating offender. In the measurement of support, we distinguished between outrage at vigilantism, empathy with the vigilante, and desired punishment for the vigilante. Confidence was assessed 1 month later. Results Our findings show that situational characteristics have a substantial and independent influence on support for vigilantism, in addition to the role of confidence. This means that when citizens express support for those who take the law into their own hands, this is not necessarily rooted in a lack of confidence in the criminal justice system. Furthermore, all three measures of support were affected more by the situational characteristics than by confidence. Conclusions Citizens are nuanced in their judgment of vigilantism and sensitive to contextual information, which is in line with other recent findings regarding public punitiveness. Future studies should assess whether the findings can be generalized to other settings where citizens cannot rely (as much) on the state to deal with crime. Keywords Confidence . Criminal justice system . Public support . Punishment . Vigilantism

N. E. Haas (*) : G. J. N. Bruinsma Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR), Amsterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] J. W. de Keijser Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

Author's personal copy N.E. Haas et al.

Introduction Citizens who take the law into their own hands tend to spark heated debates. Moreover, it is not uncommon for vigilantes to receive considerable public support for their behavior, even when they go as far as killing an (alleged) offender. A famous example is the case of Marianne Bachmeier, who took the law into her own hands inside of a courtroom in Lübeck, West Germany, in 1981. She pulled out a gun and fired eight times at the man who was on trial for the abduction, sexual abuse, and murder of her 7-year-old daughter. He died on the courtroom floor (Köpcke 2006). Many people felt sympathy for the vigilante, sending her support letters, money, and flowers while she was in detention. Interestingly, public opinion shifted once more negative information surfaced about Marianne Bachmeier’s life (Justiz und Selbstjustiz 2008). It became known that she had an additional child at age 16 and another one at age 18, who were both given up for adoption, and that her father was involved with the Waffen-SS. All in all, Marianne Bachmeier no longer seemed to fit the role of the ‘innocent’ mother that was initially ascribed to her, which affected the public’s judgment of her act of vigilantism. What does it mean when the public supports citizens who deal with crime outside of the law? Does it signify that the legitimacy of the criminal justice system is at stake?1 Public support for vigilantism is often seen as indicative of diminished confidence in the criminal justice system (e.g., Harnischfeger 2003; Tankebe 2009). However, little is known about actual determinants of support for those who take the law into their own hands. Despite its relevance from both a social and legal perspective, this phenomenon has been relatively overlooked in the criminological literature. We do not know what public support for vigilantism constitutes, what causes it and what implications it might have for society. This is unfortunate as such knowledge can provide unique insights into how people view justice within and outside of the criminal justice system. Why do citizens find certain acts of vigilantism justified even though such acts are against the law? How do people view the vigilante and his victim? Why does the public not always find it necessary for vigilantes to be punished for their criminal behavior? In this paper we seek to reach a better understanding of public support for vigilantism. We will empirically test whether support for vigilantism can be explained through a low level of confidence in the criminal justice system. We will also introduce and test an alternative proposition, namely that support is affected by characteristics related to the vigilantism situation itself. This will be studied by conducting an experimental study. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings, and by offering suggestions for future research.

Vigilantism and the state The occurrence of vigilantism begs questions about the performance of the state and its justice institutions (Black 1983; Spencer 2008). The state has a formal monopoly 1 We refer to the legitimacy of the criminal justice system as perceived by the public; not legitimacy according to objective criteria (see Hough et al. 2010 regarding this distinction).

Author's personal copy Public support for vigilantism: an experimental study

over the legitimate use of force in most developed countries, thereby harnessing the emotions of citizens into a civilized justice system.2 The modern state in fact characterizes itself by only permitting force that is used in preservation and enforcement of the law (Sarat and Kearns 1992). The presence of law is generally assumed to result in a less violent society because it provides peaceful alternatives for handling conflicts (Cooney 1997). The very existence of a criminal justice system can be justified by contrasting it with the unjustifiability of citizens retaliating against wrongdoers (Gardner 1998). One of the aims of restricting the prosecution and punishment of offenders to an impartial third party is to prevent emotional excesses. This function has been described in the literature as the displacement of retaliation: The blood feud, the vendetta, the duel, the revenge, the lynching: for the elimination of these modes of retaliation, more than anything else, the criminal law as we know it today came into existence…The displacement function of criminal law always was and remains today one of the central pillars of its justification (Gardner 1998, p.32). The criminal law thus aims to channel the natural instinct for retaliation and “turn hot vengeance into cool, impartial justice” (MacCormick and Garland 1998, p.26). This channeling is deemed necessary as it is commonly believed that people cannot be rational in the judgment of their own cases (see e.g., Locke 1689/1967). Vigilantism is commonly said to occur when citizens, from whom authorities are supposed to derive their legitimacy, believe that the criminal justice system is inadequate (Abrahams 2002; Adinkrah 2005; Baker 2001; Benesh and Howell 2001; Goldstein 2003; Robinson and Darley 1995). Vigilantism can be seen as the result of a so-called injustice gap: a discrepancy between the desired and actual outcome (Exline et al. 2003). Taking the law into one’s own hands is a way of reducing this perceived injustice gap and restoring one’s sense of justice. Vigilantism may occur when people do not want the criminal justice authorities to get involved, when the authorities fail to respond, or when the authorities were involved but not to the satisfaction of the affected party. Situations like the latter include victims or their relatives who physically attack defendants upon finding out that they are acquitted by a judge or given ‘too lenient’ a sentence (Weber 2000). The presented case of Marianne Bachmeier provides an illustrative example. Even though an arrest had been made, and a defendant was brought to trial, she apparently felt that none of the possible judicial sentences would be adequate. She probably saw the death penalty as the only satisfactory result, which was not an option in the German criminal justice system, and effectuated this desired punishment by fatally shooting the defendant. Similarly, in South Africa there are reports of citizens who, due to dissatisfaction with the formal response to crime, collectively pay bail of jailed convicts and subsequently kill them (Minnaar 2001). When citizens resort to vigilantism, it can be a sign that the state’s capability to displace retaliation is in jeopardy. However, what may matter most on a societal level is the collective approval of citizens who take the law into their own hands. Research suggests that support for vigilantism may increase the likelihood of vigilante behavior in a community (Weisburd 1998). Even if 2

There are exceptions to this monopoly, such as self-defense and citizen’s arrest.


vigilantism itself is rare, public support for it can be widespread. Formal responses like the arrest, prosecution and sentencing of vigilantes can trigger considerable public controversy. Ideally, a legal system should represent the moral consensus of the community, maximizing voluntary compliance. In reality, a justice system will never be able to fully match the values and expectations of all citizens that it is supposed to serve. Legal rules will always diverge to a certain extent from citizens’ principles. However, when these discrepancies become too large, the danger exists that public respect for the legal system will be lost (Carlsmith 2008; Darley 2001; Roberts and Stalans 1997). Such a lack of respect for the law would be detrimental to the functioning of the criminal justice system, as citizens often obey the law because they find the norms to be legitimate and deserving of compliance (Coffee 1991; Tyler 1990). It has been argued in the literature that moral contempt for specific laws may generalize to the entire criminal code (Greene and Darley 1998). Thus, if there is no moral consensus in the community vis-à-vis the formal reactions to vigilantism, the state should at least attempt to explain to its citizens why the existing practice is to be preferred (Greene and Darley 1998). If not, people may lose confidence in the law and the legal authorities, which may ironically bring about a higher frequency of vigilantism itself.

The concept of vigilantism In order to study public support for vigilantism, it is crucial to know what vigilantism entails. Importantly, it is not an act that has been defined in (criminal) law; people cannot be charged with ‘vigilantism’. Citizens can only be arrested, prosecuted and/or sentenced for legally defined acts such as murder; the context is what may result in an additional qualification of the act as vigilantism. In order to reach a definition of vigilantism, we therefore draw on the scientific literature instead of the law. Interestingly, there exists disagreement on a number of seemingly rudimentary elements of vigilantism, such as the who, what, why, when and how. Some authors for instance maintain that vigilantes are private citizens (Johnston 1996; Little and Sheffield 1983), while others also envision vigilantism as carried out by state agents (Dumsday 2009; Huggins 1991). Most authors agree that vigilantism consists of (threats of) violence (Rosenbaum and Sederberg 1974), but some also include nonviolent versions like Neighborhood Watches (Hine 1998). The perceived goal of vigilantes also differs widely, such as defending an established sociopolitical order (Rosenbaum and Sederberg 1974), imposing law in a lawless setting (Alvarez and Bachman 2007), community social control (Weisburd 1998) and the apprehension and punishment of (alleged) criminals (Ayyildiz 1995; Shotland 1976; Weisburd 1998; Zimring 2003). Similarly, some claim that vigilantism is always a premeditated or organized act (Brown 1975; Dumsday 2009; Johnston 1996), while others also recognize more spontaneous forms (Adinkrah 2005; Huggins 1991; Shotland and Goodstein 1984). For current purposes we define vigilantism as a planned criminal act, carried out by a private citizen in response to (the perceived threat of) a crime committed by a private citizen, targeting the (alleged) perpetrator of that crime. This (necessarily restricted) definition will provide a starting point for our empirical analysis of support for vigilantism. By describing vigilantism as a criminal act, we purposely exclude


self-defense and citizen’s arrest, which are related but quite distinct phenomena (see e.g., Cohen 1989).

Support for vigilantism Empirical research on support for vigilantism is scarce, and measures of both support for vigilantism and confidence are often limited (Hamm et al. 2011; Tyler and Huo 2002; Zimring 2003). Single-item measures are commonly used, which are particularly sensitive to measurement error and distortion (Roberts and Hough 2005). The wide variety of conceptualizations of confidence and vigilantism in the literature further complicates the matter. In essence, support for vigilantism is a reaction to an event that consists of two subsequent criminal acts: a precipitating crime and a vigilantism act. How might responses to such events be explained? In order to reach a better understanding of public support for vigilantism, we draw on social justice research, which aims to explain people’s judgments about justice and injustice (Tyler and Smith 1997). Numerous studies in this field have demonstrated the important role of emotions in reactions to crime (e.g., Freiburg 2001; Johnson 2009; Tyler and Boeckmann 1997; Vidmar 2001). The primary reaction to intentionally inflicted harm, such as a criminal act, is said to be moral outrage (e.g., Carlsmith et al. 2002; Darley and Pittman 2003). This in turn produces a desire for retribution: punishment of the harm-doer (Tyler and Boeckmann 1997). Another common response is empathy with the victim (Friedman and Austin 1978; Hoffman 1990; Vitaglione and Barnett 2003), although victims may also be blamed or derogated (Correia et al. 2007; Haynes and Olson 2006; Lerner 1980). Vidmar (2001) proposes a six-stage model of the psychological dynamics behind retributive justice. In this model, a perceived rule or norm violation is said to arouse a negative affective reaction (such as anger), which triggers a demand for ‘justice to be done’ in order to return to a phase of homeostasis in which the rule or norm is perceived to be vindicated. Punishment is seen not only as an attempt to change the beliefs or status of the offender, but also to confirm or reestablish consensus about the moral nature of the rule that was violated. By making sure the perpetrator ‘gets what he deserves’, the moral order is restored and people can hold on to their belief that the world is just (Hafer and Bègue 2005; Lerner 1980). Based on the literature, one would normally expect an act of vigilantism to induce moral outrage, empathy with the victim, and a call for punishment of the offender. However, vigilantism forms a unique situation in that it concerns a criminal act against an (alleged) criminal offender. Vigilantism can therefore be seen both as a violation and confirmation of norms. By ‘punishing’ an offender, the vigilante confirms the norm that was violated in the precipitating crime, but at the same time he violates the norm of the state monopoly on the legitimate use of force. For some, the act of vigilantism will be seen as causing an injustice gap, evoking a call for punishment of the vigilante in order to restore justice. Others may actually perceive the vigilante as restoring justice in response to the injustice caused by the precipitating crime. They may therefore not be outraged by the act of vigilantism, feel empathy with the offender instead of with his victim, and find punishment of the offender uncalled for. In other words: they may express support for vigilantism. The main question is what might


determine how people respond to vigilantism. Below we present two main propositions in this regard. Confidence proposition According to what we refer to as the confidence proposition, when a citizen supports vigilantism, this is due to a low general level (or lack) of confidence in the criminal justice system. In other words, a negative view of the criminal justice system is thought to result in a rejection of the norm of the state monopoly on force, and in a positive view of those who take the law into their own hands (Goldstein 2003; Harnischfeger 2003; Lenz 1988; Tankebe 2009). This hypothesis appears to be feasible at first glance. After all, why would people who do have confidence in justice support those who defy the law? To date there has nonetheless been little attempt to test this idea. Only one study has reliably evaluated this proposition, using survey data to examine the effect of attitudes toward police on public support for vigilantism in Ghana (Tankebe 2009). Findings confirm the expected negative relation between (perceived) police trustworthiness and support for vigilantism. Situation proposition In this section we will argue that public responses to an act of vigilantism are (at least in part) affected by situational characteristics. In other words, the situation proposition maintains that support for vigilantism is shaped by aspects of the vigilantism case itself. This is in line with findings from the field of social justice research, which suggest that people’s judgments of issues such as fairness, justice, and deservingness at least partially depend on contextual factors (Tyler and Smith 1997). Research shows public reactions to crime to be affected by situational aspects such as the severity of the offense (Cullen et al. 1983; Darley et al. 2000; Jacoby and Cullen 1998; Stylianou 2003), crime type (Carlsmith et al. 2002; Rossi et al. 1985; Warr 1989), perceived responsibility of the offender (Heider 1958; Joseph and Tedeschi 1983; Shaw and Sulzer 1964) and characteristics of the offender (Applegate et al. 1996; Rossi et al. 1985; Scott et al. 2006; Warr 1989). When there are justifications, excuses or mitigations, this can also affect reactions to harm (Darley and Pittman 2003). Provoked harm for instance leads people to be milder in their retributive judgments (Vidmar 2001). Likewise, when people feel empathetic with an offender, this is said to reduce punitiveness (Unnever and Cullen 2009) and increase forgiveness (Exline et al. 2003). It has also been argued in the literature that when someone finds out that a victim has previously harmed the offender, this may result in reduced empathy with the victim and increased empathy with the offender (Hoffman 1990; Lerner 1980). In line with the social justice literature, we predict that situational characteristics, such as those related to the act of vigilantism or to the people involved, will affect public support for vigilantism. In other words, rather than assuming that people’s response to an act of vigilantism is exclusively a result of their overall level of confidence in the criminal justice system, we expect them to be sensitive to case-specific information. If the precipitating crime is for instance particularly heinous, this may result in a more positive reaction to an act of vigilantism, regardless of someone’s view of the criminal


justice system. Importantly, this situational context can also concern the criminal justice system: the kind of formal response or lack thereof to a specific (precipitating) crime. If for instance the (alleged) perpetrator of a crime is not punished by the authorities, this can result in a perception of injustice, which may manifest itself in support for a subsequent act of vigilantism (cf. Goldberg et al. 1999). Perceptions of the criminal justice system can thus play a role on two levels: on both a general and specific (situational) one. We found only one experimental study that provides empirical evidence for the role of situational characteristics within the context of vigilantism. Based on an experiment with vignettes and a between-subjects design, Skitka and Houston (2001) concluded that whether respondents perceived vigilantism against a murder suspect as fair depended on the murder suspect’s apparent guilt (guilty, innocent or ambiguous).

The current study As outlined above, empirical research on public support for vigilantism is scarce. Moreover, we have not come across any studies in which the two presented propositions have been tested simultaneously. In order to do so, it is essential to (1) vary situational characteristics of an act of vigilantism, and (2) assess support for vigilantism as well as confidence in the criminal justice system. This is precisely the approach of the current experiment. We use experimental variation with vignettes to test the situation proposition, and introduce multiple-item measures for both support and confidence. The use of vignettes allows for a systematic variation of specific pieces of information, so that the effects of this manipulation on the dependent variable (in this case support for vigilantism) can be studied in isolation from other effects (Bieneck 2009; Rossi and Nock 1982). Vignettes are also valuable for comparing judgments between experimental conditions, rather than asking respondents to explain their own judgments. This is useful as people are not always aware of their own attitudes or actual reasons that lie behind their judgments (Carlsmith 2008; De Keijser 2001; Roberts and Stalans 1997). In order to systematically vary situational characteristics of vigilantism in a vignette, it is important to identify the main events of which a vigilantism situation is commonly composed. We therefore introduce the ‘vigilantism event sequence’, which consists of three events. Firstly, without a prior crime to react to, vigilantism cannot be distinguished from other forms of crime. We will refer to this prior crime as the precipitating crime, which forms the first event in the sequence. Secondly, (support for) vigilantism is often attributed to a dissatisfaction with the extent to which the legal authorities (fail to) deal with the precipitating crime. We therefore identify the formal reaction to the precipitating crime as the second main event. The final event in the sequence is the act of vigilantism itself. According to the situation proposition, characteristics of all three events (and the people involved) can affect support for a vigilantism case.

Methods The study consists of two parts. In the first part we presented respondents with vignettes in an experimental design, and measured their support for vigilantism. In


the second part, which was conducted 1 month later, we assessed confidence in the criminal justice system. We created this time lapse to reduce possible effects of reading and responding to vignettes on the confidence ratings, and to prevent respondents from guessing the purpose of the study. Likewise, participants were not informed that the measures were part of the same study. Design In a between-subjects experimental design, each respondent was presented with two vignettes that together present information about all three events from the vigilantism event sequence. Vignette 1 describes the precipitating crime, which was followed by a first set of questions. Participants were subsequently presented with Vignette 2, which describes the formal response to the precipitating crime and a subsequent act of vigilantism (against the precipitating offender). This vignette was followed by a second set of questions, measuring support for vigilantism. The contents of the vignettes differ in correspondence with the experimental manipulation of two situational characteristics. Experimental factor 1 is the type of precipitating crime (three versions). Experimental factor 2 is the formal sentence for the precipitating offender (four versions).3 Both factors are expected to affect how the subsequent act of vigilantism is judged by respondents. Table 1 provides an overview of the design; the manipulation, vignettes and measures are elucidated below. Respondents were randomly allocated to one of the ten conditions. Factor 1: type of precipitating crime The first experimental factor is the type of precipitating crime, which was presented in Vignette 1. As described earlier, crime type can have a considerable impact on how a crime situation and the people involved are judged by outsiders (e.g., Carlsmith et al. 2002). This experimental manipulation was operationalized by constructing three versions of the precipitating crime: traffic aggression, a pedestrian crash and a sex offense. The consequences for the victim of the precipitating crime were purposely non-fatal in order to avoid reaching a ceiling effect of support. In the traffic aggression version, a 39-year-old male cyclist is cut off in traffic by a car driver. The cyclist reacts to this by raising his fists to the driver, after which the latter purposely pushes him off the road. This causes the cyclist to fall off his bicycle, resulting in a broken arm, a broken leg, bruised ribs and a concussion. He is taken to a hospital. The driver is apprehended by the police and found to have a blood-alcohol level of twice the legal limit. The pedestrian crash version describes a 9-year-old girl who is hit by a speeding car while walking her bicycle across a pedestrian crossing. The driver is arrested by the police and is found to be intoxicated at the same level as the driver in the traffic aggression version. The girl’s injuries are exactly the same as those suffered by the male victim in the traffic aggression version, and she is also taken to a hospital. 3 In the sex offense condition, there are only two sentencing variations: a lenient and a severe one. The reason for this is that we piloted this study using the two traffic offenses, and found relatively low levels of support for vigilantism. As an extra check we therefore included a particularly heinous precipitating event (child molestation) in the current study, but only operationalized two out of four sentences due to practical limitations.

Author's personal copy Public support for vigilantism: an experimental study Table 1 Experimental factors and conditions Factor 1: type of precipitating crime

Factor 2: sentence for the precipitating offender

Traffic aggression

Pedestrian crash

Acquittal

x

x

Lenient

x

x

Normal

x

x

Severe

x

x

Sex offense

x x

The third version of Vignette 1 concerns child molestation. The victim is a 9-year-old girl who is pulled off her bicycle while on her way home from school. After she falls to the ground, a man sexually assaults her. In the struggle that follows, she is able to get away, and the man is later apprehended by the police. The English translation of all three versions of Vignette 1 can be found in Appendix 1. Apart from the type of precipitating crime, details were held constant between the three vignettes as much as possible in order to avoid interference with the experimental manipulation. However, it was challenging to vary crime type without varying other situational aspects. We return to this in the discussion section. Factor 2: sentence for the precipitating offender The second experimental factor concerns the sentence for the precipitating offender, and was manipulated in Vignette 2. The public tends to feel strongly about sentencing, and often perceives it to be too lenient (e.g., De Keijser et al. 2007, regarding the Dutch). We expect that the type of sentence for the precipitating offender in the vignette will affect to what extent the subsequent act of vigilantism is perceived as an injustice. In our study, we distinguish four sentence levels: acquittal, a lenient, normal and a severe sentence.4 The lenient sentence for the two traffic offenders (traffic aggression and pedestrian crash) for instance consists of a 100 euro fine and a suspended driver’s license for 2 months. The severe version of the sentence is a combination of 240h of community service, a 4-month suspended prison sentence and a 2-year suspension of the driver’s license. In case of acquittal, the precipitating offender is acquitted by the judge due to a technicality (the wrong date in the summons). Importantly, it is made clear that the precipitating offender is not released because of a lack of evidence. The sentences for the two traffic offenders necessarily differ from the sentences given to the sex offender due to the specific nature of the offenses. The suspension of the driver’s license is replaced by victim compensation in the sex offense condition. Appendix 1 provides the English translation of selected versions of Vignette 2. Following the information about the sentence, the vignette reports that the sentenced precipitating offender was attacked by a vigilante. The vigilantism act is identical in all conditions: a 39-year-old male vigilante goes to the house of the 4 These are our labels of the relative severity of the sentencing variations; respondents may have experienced the severity differently. In order to reinforce the suggestion of a lenient, normal or severe sentence, the vignettes report what the Public Prosecution had demanded as a sentence for the precipitating offender.


precipitating offender and throws a brick through the front window. Following this, the precipitating offender walks out his front door and gets beaten up by the vigilante. The resulting injuries of the vigilantism victim (i.e., the precipitating offender) are two broken teeth, a broken nose and contusions. This act of vigilantism matches our definition. The identity of the vigilante differs slightly between the conditions. The traffic aggression offender is attacked by the man he previously victimized (the cyclist). In the other two conditions, the father of the victimized 9-year-old girl is the one who takes the law into his own hands. With the aim of inducing genuine reactions from our respondents, all vignettes were made as realistic as possible by making them appear like articles from a popular Dutch news website: www.nu.nl. A real crime scene picture from the website was added to Vignette 1 to make it more salient.5 Each version contains the same picture of a bicycle lying in an area between a road and a bicycle path, which matches all three storylines. Measures Support for vigilantism To measure support for vigilantism, we presented a wide range of items that pertain to various sentiments. We based these on research in the field of social justice, which has identified some of the most common emotional reactions to crime (e.g., Darley and Pittman 2003). A 7-point Likert response format was used (10fully disagree; 70 fully agree). Items include “I find it terrible that Ruben S. was beaten up” and “I feel sympathy for Frank H.”. Based on these items (k016), we constructed three distinct measures of support: outrage at vigilantism (α0.86), empathy with the vigilante (α0.84) and desired punishment for the vigilante (α0.88).6 See Appendix 2 for the items and summated scales.7 Confidence In the literature on confidence, a distinction is commonly made between procedural justice and effectiveness (e.g., Roberts and Hough 2005; Skogan 2009; Sunshine and Tyler 2003a, 2003b). We used insights from both perspectives to create an elaborate measure of confidence. It has additionally been shown that there is added value of specifying confidence per criminal justice system agency, as it results in differential confidence ratings (e.g., Allen et al. 2006; Roberts and Hough 2005). Our final measure of confidence (k044) therefore combines items about a) procedural justice 5

The editors of www.nu.nl gave written permission to use the nu.nl format and picture, provided that subjects would be informed about the fictitious nature of the articles. A disclaimer followed after the first part of the study. 6 A factor analysis resulted in two rather than three factors, with an explained variance of 57 percent. We nonetheless decided to construct three scales because the social justice literature commonly makes a meaningful distinction between moral outrage, empathy and desire for punishment. 7 The items that were presented after Vignette 1 function as a manipulation check for the first experimental factor (type of precipitating crime). These items are almost identical to those related to Vignette 2, except that the former concern the precipitating crime instead of the vigilantism act. The responses to this first set of items confirm that people were upset about the precipitating crime (analyses not reported here).


and effectiveness and b) police, public prosecution, judges and the criminal justice system as a whole. Examples are “Judges treat people fairly” and “The police are effective in combating crime”. A 7-point Likert response format was used. The items were used to construct one overall summated scale: Confidence in the criminal justice system (α0.96).8 The items can be found in Appendix 2.

Hypotheses Experimental factor 1: type of precipitating crime Overall we expect that a more serious precipitating crime will lead to relatively more positive reactions regarding the subsequent act of vigilantism; it will be seen as less of an injustice. As child molesters tend to evoke very emotional reactions, we hypothesize that when he becomes the victim of vigilantism, levels of outrage at vigilantism and punishment desire will be lowest, and empathy with the vigilante highest, compared to the other two precipitating crimes. The victimized cyclist who takes the law into his own hands will probably induce the highest levels of outrage compared to the other two vigilantes, as he can be seen as having partially provoked the traffic offense by raising his fist to the driver. Empathy and punishment ratings will vary accordingly. Experimental factor 2: sentence for the precipitating offender We expect that the more adequate the formal reaction to the precipitating crime is perceived to be, the more negative people will react to the subsequent act of vigilantism. We predict that a severe sentence for the precipitating offender will lead to relatively more outrage when he is also ‘punished’ by a vigilante, as the latter event will be perceived as more of an injustice than in the conditions where he is punished more leniently (or even acquitted). Empathy and punishment desire will follow this pattern. Vigilantism after acquittal will thus result in the lowest levels of outrage and punishment desire, and highest level of empathy with the vigilante. Confidence in the criminal justice system In line with the confidence proposition, we expect a negative relation between confidence in the justice system and support for vigilantism. People who have a higher level of confidence are more likely to consider criminal justice procedures and outcomes as legitimate and adequate, and will therefore react more negatively to vigilantism. They will be more likely to see vigilantism as causing injustice rather than justice. Confidence in the criminal justice system will thus be positively related to outrage at vigilantism and desired punishment for the vigilante, and negatively to empathy with the vigilante. 8

A factor analysis resulted in two factors, with one consisting of all items related to police. The results of the regression analyses were highly similar when running them separately for these two confidence factors, so we constructed one overall confidence scale for reasons of parsimony. We excluded five items that loaded below .40 in the forced one-factor solution.


Data collection and sample Data were collected by the CentERdata research institute among a random selection of members of the Longitudinal Internet Studies for the Social sciences (LISS) panel.9 This representative online panel consists of 5,000 households, comprising a total of approximately 9,000 individuals, and is based on a true probability sample of households drawn from the population by Statistics Netherlands.10 Half of the LISS panel members (n04,440) were randomly selected for participation in the first part of the study in September 2009. A total of 2,244 individual panel members participated, yielding a response rate of 61 percent.11 Participants were randomly allocated to one of the ten experimental conditions. The second part of the study was conducted in October 2009, with a total of 2,705 respondents and a 62 percent response rate.12 For the analyses, only those respondents were included who participated in both parts of the study, which was 53 percent of the total number of individual members approached. We excluded 404 respondents who were in additional experimental conditions which are not analyzed in the current paper. We additionally excluded 42 respondents due to missing values. This results in a final sample of 1,930 respondents, of whom 48 percent are male. Participants are between 16 and 89 years old (M049; SD017).13

Findings Table 2 shows the ratings on the three measures of support for vigilantism per type of precipitating crime (experimental factor 1). 9

Funding for the establishment of the LISS panel was provided by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). For more information about the panel, see www.centerdata.nl and www.lissdata.nl. 10 The reference population is the Dutch speaking population that permanently resides in the Netherlands. Children below 16 years of age are excluded. Households that did not have internet or computers available were loaned equipment to provide access to the internet via a broadband connection. Panel members have been presented with monthly online questionnaires on a variety of topics since October 2007. Completion of a questionnaire takes about 20 to 30 minutes, and respondents are paid for each completed one. 11 Baruch (1999) compared the response rates of 175 different studies that were published in behavioral sciences journals. He found the mean reported response rate to be 55.6 percent, with a median of 60. For conventional populations, Baruch proposes response rates between 40 and 80 percent to be the acceptable norm. 12 Due to the random allocation of respondents, the non-response is divided equally over the experimental conditions. Specific characteristics of the panel members who did not participate in the current study are not available. Within the LISS panel in general, a considerable part of the monthly nonresponse is due to the same panel members every month (Scherpenzeel and Vis 2010). Panel members who participated before but have not completed a questionnaire for at least 3 months are defined as sleepers, which was the case for 13 percent of the LISS panel members in January 2010. The likelihood of becoming a sleeper is related more to past response behavior than to demographic characteristics. Non-response in the LISS panel is mainly due to technical reasons or personal circumstances; survey characteristics hardly play a role (Scherpenzeel and Zandvliet 2010). 13 The educational levels of the sample are as follows: primary education (10 percent), pre-vocational secondary education (27 percent), senior general secondary education, pre-university education or secondary vocational education (33 percent), and an associate or university degree (30 percent). With regards to monthly net income, 11 percent of the sample had no income, 25 percent earned less than or equal to 1000 euros, 41 percent between 1001 and 2000 euros and 23 percent earned over 2000 euros. These statistics are highly representative for the Dutch population, as are other sample characteristics such as ethnic background, household size and urbanity.

Author's personal copy Public support for vigilantism: an experimental study Table 2 Support for vigilantism per precipitating crime (n01,930), scale 1-7 Scale (overall mean)

Precipitating crime

Outrage at vigilantism (4.01)

Traffic aggression (n0747)

4.64 (1.25)

Pedestrian crash (n0776)

3.83 (1.37)

Empathy with vigilante (3.62)

Desired punishment for vigilante (5.01)

Mean (SD)

Sex offense (n0407)

3.19 (1.29)


3.04 (1.20)


3.71 (1.35)

Sex offense (n0407)

4.50 (1.27)


5.59 (1.36)


4.92 (1.55)

Sex offense (n0407)

4.14 (1.68)

The levels of outrage at vigilantism are not very high, suggesting that respondents were not particularly upset by the fact that the precipitating offender was assaulted. Only in the traffic aggression condition does outrage exceed the midpoint of the scale. It is also noticeable that, in the case of the two traffic offenses, desired punishment is higher than outrage, and empathy is the lowest of all three measures of support. The opposite is true for the sex offense. This implies that the specific nature of the sex offense has a particular impact on people’s responses. In Table 3, the mean ratings on the three support measures are presented per level of the second experimental factor: the sentence level for the precipitating offender. We carried out a two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for each of the three dependent variables to test for main effects and interactions (see Table 4). All main Table 3 Support for vigilantism per sentence level (n01,930), scale 1-7 Scale (overall mean) Outrage at vigilantism (4.01)

Empathy with vigilante (3.62)

Desired punishment for vigilante (5.01)

Sentence level

Mean (SD)

Acquittal (n0395)

3.81 (1.36)

Lenient (n0584)

3.88 (1.43)

Normal (n0360)

4.38 (1.39)

Severe (n 0591)

4.03 (1.43)

Acquittal (n0395)

3.74 (1.30)

Lenient (n0584)

3.78 (1.44)

Normal (n0360)

3.22 (1.30)

Severe (n 0591)

3.61 (1.40)

Acquittal (n0395)

4.84 (1.55)

Lenient (n0584)

4.85 (1.66)

Normal (n0360)

5.44 (1.46)

Severe (n 0591)

5.04 (1.63)

Sex offense was operationalized with only two sentencing levels (lenient and severe), so the acquittal and normal conditions have relatively less respondents


Table 4 Two-way ANOVAs on three measures of support for vigilantism

SOURCE

df

F

Precipitating crime

2

181.35**

Sentence level

3

17.19**

Precipitating crime * sentence level

4

.41

Precipitating crime

2

177.14**

Sentence level

3

14.22**


4

.63

Precipitating crime

2

126.21**

Sentence level

3

13.66**


4

.45

Outrage at vigilantism

Empathy with vigilante

* p